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Dearfield: African American agricultural colony

Contributed by: Modupe Labode/Colo. Hist. Soc. on 2/8/2006

In recognition of Black History Month, each week in February a Colorado Historical Society historian will share a story that highlights important people, places or events that shaped the state's past. This is the second article, which was written by Modupe Labode, State Chief Historian. Visit coloradohistory.org to learn more about the Colorado Historical Society.

Dearfield: the rise and fall of Colorado’s African American agricultural colony

In 1910, a handful of black Coloradans established a settlement on the plains of Weld County. To them, the windy grasslands represented hope for a better future, where they could forge independent, dignified lives. They called the city “Dearfield.”

The driving force behind this colony was Oliver Toussaint Jackson, better known as “O.T.” Jackson was born in Ohio in 1862. As a young man, Jackson joined the thousands of people who sought better opportunities in the West. He settled in Denver in 1887, where he established himself as a caterer. By 1896, the enterprising Jackson and his wife, Minerva, opened “Jackson’s Farm,” a restaurant and farm in Boulder. Jackson was deeply involved in Democratic Party politics, an unusual choice for an African American at the time. As an acknowledgement of Jackson’s political acumen, Governor John Shafroth appointed Jackson his messenger, and Jackson held that job through five gubernatorial administrations.

Jackson was concerned with how he could help “uplift the race.” Booker T. Washington argued that African Americans’ only hope lay in working the land and striving for self-sufficiency. This was a controversial argument, but it made sense to Jackson, who began looking for a space to create an agricultural colony for black Americans. Jackson eventually settled on a tract in Weld County. In 1910 he filed a 320-acre homestead claim that would become the basis for Dearfield. Jackson and the first seven families became one of many groups of Coloradans who strove to create a utopia on the land.

The number of families steadily grew and colonists came from as far away as Missouri, Arkansas, and Virginia. Like Jackson, they often had to support themselves by holding other jobs. The colonists forged cordial relations with their white neighbors, and shopped at Wiggins and other nearby towns. In 1918, one Dearfield resident noted that their fellow farmers were “a very conscientious and respectable class and good citizens.” Despite the colonists’ lack of capital and experience in dry-land farming, the bustling settlement was home to between 500 and 600 people. The townspeople supported a school, two churches, a grocery store, and a dance pavilion. Drivers on Highway 34 could fill up their tanks at the gas station and get a bite to eat at Dearfield’s lunchroom.

By the mid-1920s, falling commodity prices and a regional depression devastated Colorado’s farmers; the farmers of Dearfield were not immune to the punishing economic reality. Dearfield lost its residents to the cities or other states. By 1940, Dearfield only had twelve residents. O.T. and Minerva Jackson stayed in the town they had fought so hard to build, and for a time kept the gas station running. After Minerva Jackson died in 1942, Jennie S. Jackson moved to Dearfield to help her uncle, who died six years later. Jennie Jackson remained in Dearfield until her own passing in 1973. The weathered, faded buildings attracted the interest of scholars, historic preservationists, and curious passers-by. Today, Denver’s Black American West Museum and Heritage Center (blackamericanwest.org) is the custodian of the Dearfield site.

Sources:

“African American History in the West Vignette: Dearfield, Colorado.” Available at the site of Dr. Quintard Taylor, Jr., Professor of American History, University of Washington: http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/aa_Vignettes/place_dearfield_co.htm

“Dearfield-5WL744,” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, 1995. Available at the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Colorado Historical Society.

“Dearfield, Colorado,” University of Northern Colorado Library. Available at: http://www.unco.edu/library/ARCHIVES/dearfield/

“History of Dearfield,” Historic Markers Program, Colorado Historical Society, 2001. The historic marker for Dearfield is located on US-85 in Weld County near mile marker 264. Evans is the nearest town. For more information on the marker, go to http://coloradohistory.org/RIPsigns/index.asp and search for “Dearfield”


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