Did the U.S. Government Once Own the Chicken Ranch Brothel?

Is it true that our United States government once owned and operated a place called the Chicken Ranch, which was a house of prostitution right outside of Las Vegas?

No.

The U.S. government never owned the Chicken Ranch, a licensed brothel that still exists located near Pahrump about 60 miles west of Las Vegas. To be sure, the Chicken Ranch (in Nevada; the original Chicken Ranch was in La Grange, Texas, and is the subject of the song "La Grange" by ZZ Top) has a long and somewhat sordid history, about which you can read in investigative reporter Jeannie Kasindorf's spellbinding 1985 book The Nye County Brothel Wars.

Here's a sneak preview: When outsider Walter Plankinton tried to open the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump in 1976, he brought down harassment, arrest, arson, and attempted murder on himself and exposed human trafficking at the competing brothels, along with high-level corruption of Pahrump and Nye County politicians and law-enforcement agents.

Phew. But even with all that, the federal government never had to intervene.

Rather, you're thinking of the Mustang Ranch in Storey County, northern Nevada, around 15 miles east of Reno.

In September 1990, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service argued successfully in federal bankruptcy court that the famous Mustang Ranch should be placed in Chapter 7 receivership due to a back-taxes bill of $13 million. This allowed the IRS to assume control of the brothel, thus winning its nearly 20-year battle with Mustang owner Joe Conforte, the most notorious pimp in Nevada history. Conforte packed his personal belongings and left, the IRS secured the property, and all of a sudden the U.S. government was literally in the prostitution business.

For a few exciting days in the middle of that month, a court-appointed trustee from Reno actually did attempt to conduct affairs, so to speak, as usual at the brothel.

However, the commissioners of tiny Storey County, where the Mustang Ranch was the largest employer, began to worry. Given the notorious inefficiency of the new owner's management team, as well as its insolvency to the tune at the time of a trillion dollars, the commissioners questioned whether the United States government was fit to run a whorehouse.

Finally, the bankruptcy judge put an end to the circus and the IRS auctioned off the furnishings to help pay the back taxes -- and the national debt. (LVA's Deke Castleman waited in line for an hour to enter the brothel and view the property for sale, so he could write about it for his travel guide, Nevada Handbook. "The reason the line was so long," he tells us, "was that hundreds of local women, who'd never been allowed inside, wanted to see what it looked like. I was one of only a few men to tour the place ahead of the IRS auction.")

The Mustang Ranch was subsequently sold to Joe Conforte's lawyer's brother for 10 cents on the dollar. Conforte himself had fled to Rio de Janeiro.

A federal grand jury indicted Conforte on numerous counts in 1995 and 1998. The Brazilian Supreme Court, however, ruled in 1999 that the extradition treaty between Brazil and the United States didn't cover bankruptcy fraud.

Conforte died in Rio last March at the age of 93 (though his death hasn't been confirmed). Joe Pesci played him in the 2010 film Love Ranch.

As for the Mustang, its history over the past 30 years since the IRS fiasco is worthy of a book of its own. But as far as we know, that IRS episode remains one of a kind in the modern era.

Is it true that our U.S. government once owned and operated the Chicken Ranch, a house of prostitution right outside of Las Vegas?

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Comments

Jackie Jan-20-2020

Mean while, in other places

Our Government has built and staffed bordellos just outside military base properties in foreign countrys that either allow or turn a blind eye toward bordellos.  There are two reasons for this with the first being medical supervision of employees to insure our troops don't contract an STD that bans them from re-entering the USA.  The other reason is to insure our troops safety from being murdered by the enemy as Vietnam Vets can attest to.

gaattc2001 Jan-20-2020

My grandmother was from LaGrange, Texas...

and she said that during the depression, the Chicken Ranch was the only building in town that was always freshly painted.

rokgpsman Jan-20-2020

IRS

It's not too surprising that the IRS owned a brothel in Nevada at one time, the US government has been screwing all of us one way or another for years.

Dave in Seattle. Jan-20-2020

The correct term is brothel.

Whores are not employees,prostitutes are."Sex workers".

Jackie Jan-20-2020

@ Dave in Seattle

Is the English language a second language to you?  Do you ever look up a word in a dictionary before commenting on it? Is your comment based in hatred, some religious cult of lies and deception, prejudice, bigotry, or just plain ignorance?  If not, then why didn't you say Sex Workers or Prostitutes are not Employees. If a person is paid a salary to provide a service then they are indeed an employee otherwise what would prevent such a person from working a service at the piece rate of payment?  Employees can be medically examined and limit their services to specified customers.  Grow up, the Victorian era of prudishness ended a hundred years ago.

O2bnVegas Jan-20-2020

Dave!!

You forgot "Ladies of the Evening."  LOL.

Jeff Jan-20-2020

@Jackie

Respectfully, you are incorrect in your reply to Dave in Seattle.

I just Googled NV brothels. From John Ralston's excellent online newspaper, "The Nevada Independent:" "Workers [prostitutes in NV brothels] are independent contractors [NOT employees] and get business licenses from the State of Nevada." Workers are required by the state to have health exams as a condition of holding a state license for a prostitute.

This status of brothel workers as non-employees is consistent with what I know about San Francisco specifically and elsewhere generally.

In San Francisco, for the past 30 or so years there have been famous (or infamous) strip clubs where sex is openly available in private rooms. In other words, they are de facto brothels. The sex workers in these clubs were not employees. They were independent contractors, "working a service at the piece rate" as you wrote. Though this has changed in San Francisco in recent years due to legal challenges, it is still common elsewhere.

Jackie Jan-20-2020

@ Jeff

I cordially invite you to re-read my original post at the very top titled "Meanwhile, in other places" which should have been your first clue that my comment was in regards to US Government run Bordellos in other places than Nevada.  Therefore my reply was not incorrect.  However Dave in Seattle and you Jeff are both incorrect since I referred to bordellos run outside the borders of the USA and it's territories.

Jeff Jan-20-2020

@Jackie

My comment was about the ongoing national debate over whether sex workers in massage parlors, strip clubs, and legal brothels should be employees or independent contractors. What triggered my critical comment was your writing:

"why didn't you say Sex Workers or Prostitutes are not Employees. If a person is paid a salary to provide a service then they are indeed an employee otherwise what would prevent such a person from working a service at the piece rate of payment? "

That has nothing to do with government run brothels in foreign lands, and
I was not quibbling with your use of the word bordello.

Question of the Day - 20 January 2020

Comments