Mustang Ranch property could still do some good

Out of sight, out of mind. That seems to be the prevailing opinion of the last vestiges of the Mustang Ranch, the first and most notorious of Nevada's legal brothels.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has decided to tear down the roadside attraction east of Reno because the agency hasn't found a suitable use for the buildings.

"The buildings were built for a specific purpose in mind and they realistically can't be used for anything else," BLM spokesman Mark Struble told the Associated Press.

That may be so. We were never in any of its 104 rooms, for any purpose. We're told they're not in very good shape.

Nor do we have any nostalgia for the Mustang Ranch as a piece of Nevada history. A landmark it may have been when Joe Conforte, after playing cat-and-mouse with local authorities for a few years, managed to get prostitution legalized in 1971.

But it's not a monument we'll miss, like the Virginia & Truckee Shops in Carson City or the Mapes Hotel in Reno. In fact, the stories about it will only grow in stature -- if not in truth -- when the place itself is gone. Tourists won't be able to wander in and say, "This is it?"

(Conforte, by the way, called us not too long ago from Brazil to set the record straight. He did not flee there to avoid tax charges. He went there voluntarily before the charges were filed. And he likes it there.)

The real question for the federal government is what will be done with the property, which the feds have owned for more than three years.

Whatever their opinions of brothels, Storey County officials did get revenue from the Mustang Ranch. Now it's become just another piece of vacant federal land, and Nevada already has a surplus of that.

An open house is scheduled for March 25 in Lockwood to give the BLM ideas for future uses of the riverfront property. We hope they get some creative ideas that will help Storey County.

The Lockwood area could use a senior center, and Storey County could use the water rights associated with the land.