Dearfield: Colorado's historic community could become part of the National Park Service
On the Eastern Plains of remote Weld County, the U.S. Department of the Interior is contemplating making one of Colorado's first Black communities part of the National Park Service. Dearfield, located dozens of miles southeast of Greeley, was one of the most prominent Black farming communities in the early 1900s.
Today, thousands of people drive past Dearfield completely unaware it used to be a town, let alone a historic one. What remains of the once-vibrant community is a small handful of buildings that are slowly falling apart.
"The easiest way of forgetting people is forgetting where they lived, forgetting the town. This has disappeared into people's memories," said George Junne, Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Northern Colorado.
Dearfield was one of about 25 Black farming communities in Colorado when it was founded around 1910 by O.T. Jackson. Jackson, one of the most powerful Black Coloradans at the time, built the town as a way to give his fellow African Americans the opportunity to work the land they also own.
"It was a thriving community," Junne said.
Junne has spent decades of his life not only researching and visiting the town but also working with many others to secure funding to try and preserve what is left of the historic community.
"When I first came out in the 80s I used to be able to walk into this house," Junne said. "I used to go inside and sit at the counter (of the restaurant.)"
However, the Dust Bowl in the 1940s claimed Dearfield just like it did hundreds of other communities, no matter the race of those who worked the lands. Since then the homes, churches, offices and farms of the roughly 200 people who called Dearfield home have either collapsed or rotted away.
However, Junne hopes to secure more funding so that the town can be preserved and created into a tourist location for people to learn more about Black Coloradans.
"Black people around the country knew about Dearfield," Junne said.
Junne said spreading the stories of the people who used to live in Dearfield will help visitors realize how strong the Black community was in the early 1900s, even when met with adversity.
"Dearfield shows, quite clearly, that if people have the opportunity they will do whatever they can to own their own houses and their own land," Junne said.
Not only does the old town honor the legacy of Coloradans being able to own their own land and businesses, but it also showed how many were breaking away from racism well before the rest of the country.
"On Saturday nights people would come dancing. You would have Black people and white people together having fun while in Denver the KKK is picking up. Out here in this part of the world Black and white people are dancing, working together," Junne said.
Eighty years after the Dust Bowl ruined what the town hoped would be a promising future of strong agriculture and more, Junne said he wants to help bring more notoriety and funding to the town in order to make sure generations of the future will remember the history of the community.
"They need to have some attention paid to them so people can see how hard folks work to make themselves into a successful group of people," Junne said. "This is an example of what happens if Black people have an opportunity. They can have a thriving community."