🇺🇸 Ash Meadows Sky Ranch Airport

Ash Meadows Sky Ranch (US-3585), near Pahrump, Nevada, closed in the mid-1970s after Nye County declined to renew its brothel license in 1971, citing the prohibitive costs of weekly medical inspections for workers at such a remote location.

Initially established around 1946-1948 as the Ash Meadows Lodge, a dude ranch and "divorce ranch," it featured a motel, restaurant, bar, swimming pool, and an airstrip, becoming one of Nye County's first licensed brothels in 1958. In 1971, madam Vickie Starr acquired it, renaming it Ash Meadows Sky Ranch to highlight its airstrip, which was officially designated an airfield in 1962 and was later extended and lit. The site gained historical note as a place where author Edward Abbey worked on "Desert Solitaire" in the late 1960s.

Today, the site is abandoned and in ruins, located within the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, with the airstrip marked as unusable by the mid-1970s. A portion of the property is currently occupied by KMI Zeolite Inc. for a zeolite mining operation, though the airstrip is not in use. The derelict facilities were notably used as a filming location for the 1987 movie "Cherry 2000".