Telluride Colorado is our home. The town is one of the most unique places in the world. A quaint, well-preserved Victorian mining town surrounded with some of the most stunning scenery in all of North America. The magic of the Town of Telluride goes into what makes Brown Dog Pizza a special place.
The early history of Telluride, Colorado lies with the nomadic Ute Indians who would summer in the valley where deer, elk, and bighorn sheep were plentiful. The tribes would migrate to lower, more hospitable climes in the winters. This centuries-old pattern changed when the first Europeans discovered the San Juan Mountains 1700s. Even though there may have been the occasional trapper or frontiersman in Telluride’s valley, there were no permanent residents here until gold was discovered in the region.
The bustling mining town was home to thousands of residents throughout the region with a melting pot of cultures and nationalities. The mining boom created a vast amount of wealth in Telluride. By the turn of the century, there were more millionaires per capita in Telluride than in New York City. The mines of the region produced over $375 million dollars of gold in today’s adjusted dollars.
After many decades of successful mining, the yields on gold and silver started to decline. With the crash of silver prices and the advent of World War I, the mining boom went bust. Mining shifted to other minerals and metals, but it could not sustain the economy that Telluride once had. Telluride was left to become a ghost town.
New riches came to town after the miners left. These riches were in the form of snow. Entrepreneur Joe Zoline envisioned a ski resort on the slopes of the mountains surrounding Telluride. Five lifts and a day lodge opened in winter of 1972. Six years later, Ron Allred and Jim Wells purchased the resort and started the transformation of the resort into a world-class destination with lift upgrades, new terrain, the development of Mountain Village, and the free public transportation system the gondola. Then in 2004, Chuck Horning bought the ski resort and is its current owner.
Brown Dog is located at 110 East Colorado Ave. in the Historic Nunn Building, Telluride, Colorado. The building is over 100 years old and has housed several successful businesses, including L.L. Nunn whom opened the world’s first commercial grade alternating-current power plant in Ames, Colorado with his brother and George Westinghouse.
Today, Brown Dog Pizza boasts a family friendly atmosphere with various sports jerseys and signed sports memorabilia adorning its walls, as well as 10 HDTVs showing NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and Soccer games every day. Of course there is the World Famous Pizza that you have to eat to believe. The Brown Dog is quickly becoming one of Telluride’s newest traditions.
