Ash Meadows Sky Ranch

 abandoned / shut down, brothel

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Originally built and known as the Ash Meadows Lodge or Ash Meadows Rancho in the late 1940s as a dude ranch and place for people waiting for a quick Nevada divorce could live for six weeks. The Spanish-style resort included a 16-unit motel, restaurant and bar, barracks-type building, swimming pool, generator house, pond, barn and corrals, and the airstrip. Rustic signs made from mesquite advertising the dude ranch once stretched all the way south to at least San Bernardino.

After the telephone line was removed from the old Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad, the owner of the dude ranch had local ranchers, farmers, and miners install a phone line here. In the 1940s, the telephone here was the only one for miles and people from Pahrump would come here to make calls rather than continue on to nearby Shoshone. It was also well-known for its food, as there was really nowhere else around in those days where a family could go out and get a meal.

It was owned by a Ben Knox for some years, who put in slot machines. In 1958, it was purchased by Anne Weller, who had owned a bar in Las Vegas, and became one of three licensed brothels in Nye County. Business was brisk due to its proximity to the Nevada Test Site. It was a small, non-descript building discretely located away from the restaurant, so families could eat in the restaurant and be none the wiser about the activity taking place here.

In 1971, Vickie Starr, who once owned Vickie's Sky Ranch near Beatty, NV, bought the property and renamed it to Ash Meadows Sky Ranch. A few years later, the Nye County declined to renew the brothel license because, due to its remote location, it was costly for the medical examiner to visit weekly for the prostitutes check-ups and the brothel subsequently closed. Scenes from Cherry 2000 were filmed here and part of the property is used by KMI Zeolite.

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