Nipton's Latest Adult Circus

Nipton’s Latest Adult Circus

By Anne Stoll

More outstanding desert reporting from, of all places, the front page of the Wall Street Journal printed January 4, 2023. Paraphrasing here, it seems the 80-acre town of Nipton again has a new owner, one Ross Mollison of Las Vegas, NV. Mollison, an Australian native and owner of Spiegelworld, picked up the whole kit-and-kaboodle, complete with “about” 25 residents, in early 2022 for the bargain price of $2.5 million in cash.

Mr. Mollison and his Spiegelworld crew have grand plans for Nipton. No surprise, as this place seems to inspire big dreams (something in the water maybe?). Once the property of Jerry Freeman and his wife Roxanne Lang who bought the place in the 1980s “on a whim” for $200,000, it was sold after Freeman’s death in 2016 to a cannabis company. Their big vision included turning Nipton into an event space for Instagram influencers to highlight marijuana products. My personal recollection of that news story was they intended to grow the product on the property as well. Alas, those fantasies went the way of old smoke and the widow Lang had to repossess the town site. Back on the market in 2021 for $2.75 mil, her price tempted a hilarious list of Vegas types (remember, I was born there and can call them that) but Ross Mollison’s offer was the one that won her over. And his plan, you may ask?

Spiegelworld, a live entertainment production company famous on the strip for its “adult circus,” (https://spiegelworld.com) is making Nipton its new company headquarters. Mollison believes it will be a great place for Spiegelworld’s performers to relax and get creative. Maybe “Madam Boozy Skunkton and her sensationally talented, outrageously amoral crew” will become regulars at Nipton’s new circus village. One can only hope!

Yes, all agree there is some work to be done to get the aging facilities at Nipton into shape. Two Spiegelworld prop builders are already living there (with their five chickens) and making progress cleaning the place up. For the future there are visions of a giant sculpture park, making underground accommodations in a bunker area beneath the town and/or creating a “permanent Burning Man” location.

And the personal appeal for Ross Mollison? He says he enjoys “the sense of remoteness” and that it reminds him “of being in Australia.” Now that’s fair dinkum, mate! ~ Anne