Reno, Nev. ? The state’s first legal brothel was packed again with customers laying out the cash, but this time the money was going for the ornaments: nude paintings, a bed from the Jungle Room and other gaudy remnants of the now shuttered Mustang Ranch.

More than 250 people crowded into the ranch parlor Saturday for a government auction of much of fugitive brothel boss Joe Conforte’s property.

“It’s kind of sad. It’s the end of an era,” said Jack Drace, a former Mustang bouncer. “It was just a lot of fun out here. You could see all types of people, from street people to governors.”

The 104-room ranch was forfeited to the government in 1999 after the bordello’s parent companies and manager were convicted in a federal fraud and racketeering trial.

Three years later, the ranch furnishings, from beds to matchbooks, and four pieces of Conforte real estate in the Reno area brought $610,000 in auction proceeds to help cover law enforcement costs, said Internal Revenue Service spokesman Michael Hickey.

The Jungle Room bed and other furniture went for $550, nude paintings sold for up to $1,000 each, and Mustang jackets that originally cost $30 at the ranch netted $300 to $400.

One of the busiest bidders was Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel just east of Carson City.

He paid more than $20,000 for items he plans to display in a museum next to his bordello, shelling out $1,200 for 30,000 Mustang matchbooks and $400 for etched glass with Conforte’s name and the Mustang logo.

“The Mustang Ranch is part of American history,” he said. “The high prices today show a desire for people to own a piece of history. We bought enough to replicate a mini-Mustang.”

The future of the ranch itself remains uncertain. The Treasury Department tentatively approved transferring the 340-acre property to the Bureau of Land Management. Bureau officials have said it will no longer be a brothel, but they are open to ideas for the riverfront land 15 miles east of Reno.

Conforte fled more than 10 years ago and lives in Brazil, where authorities refuse to extradite him.