Posted on 06/29/2002 12:58:27 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
MOUND HOUSE-- A historical society that reveres the celebration of history as much as the history itself has established a monument to the Pony Express Trail in an unlikely place: the front yard of a brothel.
It turns out the 1860s mail route from St. Joseph, Mo., to California passed smack dab through the middle of the property now home to the Moonlite Bunnyranch.
Leaders of a local chapter of E Clampus Vitus said they would induct flamboyant brothel owner Dennis Hof as an official "Clamper" at a dedication today of the stone monument and plaque in front of the bordello, eight miles east of Carson City.
"It just happens to be on his property," said Marc Bebout, president of the Julia Bulette chapter formed in Virginia City in 1864 and named after the Comstock's famous "prostitute with a heart of gold."
"Mound House was a very busy area in the late 1800s, early 1900s. We want to preserve for time not only the Pony Express site but also the site of the Carson-Colorado and Virginia-Truckee Railroad," he said.
Some historians in academia say the Clampers are known best for heavy drinking at their gatherings and don't necessarily let the facts get in the way of a good story.
But they acknowledge the Clampers are accurate in their placement of the new marker. And one of the most respected Pony Express experts gives them credit for explaining that the trail extended to the San Francisco Bay area, rather than stopping in Sacramento, Calif., as many accounts state.
"I have no problem with it being in front of a brothel," said Joseph Nardone of Laguna Beach, Calif., national executive director of the Pony Express Trail Association.
"The Overland Trail, the old stagecoach crossing, the telegraph line -- it's about 80 yards south of their front door," he said from Rock Springs, Wyo., where he was placing trail markers.
Just off U.S. Highway 50 in Lyon County, past Jacob's Ladder Christian Childcare Center, Benny's Auto Body and Tussey's Guns, the Moonlite Bunnyranch sits on a hill dotted with sagebrush.
The 4-foot tall stone marker with the brown plaque and gold lettering, topped with a 3-foot long piece of rail, sits about 45 feet inside the white wooden fence marking the brothel property.
Chuck Roberts, chairman of the Mound House Regional Advisory Committee, who often fields community complaints about the brothel, said he doesn't necessarily object to marking the trail there.
"I supposed if it's true, there's no reason not to put it there," Roberts said.
"The downside is you are going to put up an historic marker to share information. I'm not sure some evangelical tourist from a Southern church is going to want to bebop by there to view the historical marker."
The Bunny Ranch also could have been, and probably was, why nearby Carson City was selected as the site for the state capitol and its legislators.
I don't think that the quality of either the booze or the "Soiled Doves" was very good in those days. But I think that the Bunnyranch would have been a welcome stop for me after riding the Humboldt Trail.
Sure they will. It will even give them an excuse for the wife.
Which is a lot more civilized that stopping in Rattle Snake Gulch with just your pony
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