The 42-Foot Hot Dog That Rolled Down 285 to Bailey

Picture a hot dog. Now make it 42 feet long. Put it in a 35-foot bun, load it with toppings the size of a car, and let the whole thing weigh in at 18 tons. That is a building. That is a restaurant. And it is sitting right off Highway 285 in Bailey, where you can walk inside the bun and order lunch.

Most people driving to South Park or Fairplay blow right past it. Big mistake.

Here is the thing. This giant dog has lived three lives in three different towns, and the fact that it still exists at all is kind of a small miracle.

Colfax, 1966

The story starts in Denver. A guy named Marcus Shannon builds this thing in 1966 on West Colfax Avenue and calls it "The Boardwalk at Coney Island." And Shannon is not thinking small. He patents the design. He wants a national chain of giant hot dog buildings, one in every city, the whole empire.

Dogs sold for a quarter apiece. Twenty-five cents.

But the empire never happened. The company went bankrupt and the place closed in 1969. Three years. That was almost the end of it.

The move to the mountains

In 1970 new owners took over and did something a little insane. They picked up the entire 18-ton hot dog and hauled it up into the mountains, dropping it in Aspen Park along U.S. 285. So now you have got a giant Colfax hot dog living in the pines. Colorado being Colorado, nobody blinked.

It sat there for decades. Then 1999 rolled around and the dog went up for sale, and suddenly people realized they might lose it for good. A local campaign kicked off to get it named a landmark and save it from getting torn down. This is the part people miss. A big chunk of Colorado roadside history came down to a bunch of locals refusing to let a giant novelty hot dog disappear.

And they were right to fight for it. This thing has been called the best example of roadside architecture in the whole state. Not one of. The best.

Bailey, 2006

In 2006 the dog moved again. A bank was going up on the Aspen Park lot, so the building got hauled roughly 17 miles southwest to Bailey, in Park County. That is where it lives now, at 10 Old Stagecoach Rd, parked right beside Roark Creek where it meets the South Platte River.

Honestly it is a perfect spot. There is limited seating inside the bun, but the real move is the wooden patio and the riverside picnic tables. You grab a dog, you sit by the water, you look up at a 42-foot sausage. That is a good afternoon.

What is actually on the menu now

Here is where it gets better than you would expect from a novelty building. The current owners are serious about the food. John Wallace, who used to own William's Tavern in Denver, bought the dog, renovated it, and reopened it after running a Kickstarter to pull it off.

And Wallace went local with the whole thing. The ingredients read like a Denver roll call. Continental Sausage out of Denver. Elevation Ketchup. Merf's Mustard. Rocky Mountain Soda. There is a pork-and-elk bratwurst, which is about as Colorado as a hot dog can possibly get, and even a vegetarian carrot dog for the crowd that does not do meat.

So it is not just a photo op that happens to sell food. Somebody actually cares what goes in the bun.

Then South Park showed up

Now the dog is having a moment. It got pulled into South Park through the "Dikinbaus Hot Dogs" storyline, the one where Cartman ends up basically forced to live inside a hot dog stand. Once that aired, a fresh wave of curious drivers started peeling off 285 to see the real thing, because of course a giant hot dog building fits right into the South Park universe.

Which, side note, is a little funny given the show is literally named after the region this dog now calls home. Park County. South Park. It all loops back around.

Why it is worth the stop

Look, you are already driving 285 half the time if you live on the Front Range. Bailey is not out of the way, it is on the way. And there are not many buildings left in Colorado that can claim they started as a bankrupt Colfax dream in 1966, survived two moves, dodged demolition thanks to neighbors who cared, and then landed a cameo on one of the most famous shows ever made about Colorado.

Eighteen tons. Three towns. Fifty-nine years and counting.

Most roadside giants like this got bulldozed decades ago. This one is still standing, still open, still feeding people bratwurst by a creek. So next time you are headed up the hill, pull over at the big dog in Bailey. Grab an elk brat. Sit by the water.

Then tell me it was not worth 20 minutes.