Today, a single plaque and a few ramshackle buildings are all that are left of Dearfield, Colorado, but the site of what was the state's most successful black town highlights the role of African-Americans in the West. - NBCBLK
Charlotte West
“I was invited to speak at our Denver church on the importance for our people of getting land before it is too late,” he wrote in a letter in On a road trip back to Michigan, Junne stopped at the site, where he met a retired police officer who was living in a former filling station. The man told him more about Dearfield’s story, and he was hooked.
By 1915, the colony had 40 farms and a 140-acre townsite. It’s main avenue was named after Washington, Jackson's hero. The town eventually boasted a filling station, a dance hall, two churches, a school and a lunch room. "He clearly showed that blacks and whites could exist and even interact together at dances and baseball games, and would even assist each other,” Junne said.Dearfield was established relatively late compared to most all-black settlements in the West, the majority of which were founded in the late 1870s and ’80s after Reconstruction failed to deliver on its promise of racial equality. The Homestead Act of 1882 offered the chance for black Americans to own land in the West.
Farmers were able to raise a surplus of “truck garden” crops — vegetables, corn, oats, barley, alfalfa, potatoes, strawberries and cantaloupes — which they were able to ship out and sell in nearby markets such as Denver. World War I also provided a much needed boost to the Dearfield economy as demand for agricultural products led to price surges.
Jackson continued to promote the Dearfield colony every chance he got, even after the community began to wane.. “Located about 70 miles east of Denver on the Lincoln Highway 38, this little town is the ideal spot for a summer outing. ... You can order dinner in advance by phoning Weldona 68-R-5, and it will be ready when you arrive.”with Walker Groves, who lived in Dearfield as a teenager in the late 1930s, Jackson had plans to rebuild Dearfield well into the ’40s.
“We walked the fields from one end to the other,” Groves said. “I never did find a stick, a hole in the ground, or blocks to prove to me that somebody had lived there. No fences, no posts, wood or metal.”
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