The story
Dearfield was founded in 1910 by Oliver Toussaint Jackson, a Black entrepreneur from Boulder who believed landownership was the path to Black independence — the name meant the fields would be 'dear' to those who worked them. By 1921 the colony on the South Platte plains had around 300 residents, 44,000 cultivated acres, churches, a dance hall, and a filling station.
The 1920s farm depression hit first, then the Dust Bowl dried the fields to powder. Families drifted to Denver for work through the 1930s; Jackson stayed, running the gas station and dreaming of revival until his death in 1948. His niece Jenny lived on alone at the site into the 1970s.
Dearfield is among the most important African American historic sites in the West. The surviving buildings are being stabilized, and the site is studied and interpreted through ongoing preservation partnerships.
What remains today
Jackson's house, the diner/filling station, and a cabin along US-34, with interpretive signs; an active preservation and archaeology effort continues.
Questions from the field
- Why is Dearfield historically significant?
- It was Colorado's largest Black homesteading colony — founded in 1910 on the belief that farm ownership was the route to Black economic independence — and its rise and Dust Bowl collapse are now a major subject of Western and African American history.
- Can you visit Dearfield?
- Yes — the site sits on US-34 east of Greeley with roadside interpretation. Buildings are unstable and closed; view from outside the fences.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Dearfield — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Dearfield's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 180759
- — National Register of Historic Places — Dearfield
- — Black American West Museum & University of Northern Colorado Dearfield project