In Denver’s historic Five Points neighborhood, for more than 50 years, the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center has shared a story many Americans have never learned: the pivotal role African Americans played in settling and shaping the American West, including Black cowboys.
During Black History Month, the museum’s mission feels especially relevant. Housed inside a restored Victorian home, the space blends local history, family memory and the backstory of the West into a narrative that challenges myths long perpetuated by Hollywood narratives.
For Daphne Rice-Allen, who has led the museum’s board for the past 12 years, the work is about both historical preservation and cultural correction.
During an interview with Colorado Matters host Chandra Thomas Whitfield, she described the museum itself as an integral part of the story it tells.
“It is a two-story 1890s Victorian home. It is the original house, the original structure, but not the original location,” Rice-Allen said.
The home previously belonged to Dr. Justina Ford, whom Rice-Allen noted was the first licensed African-American female physician in Colorado. Ford practiced medicine in northeast Denver for five decades after arriving in 1902 with her husband, the Rev. John Ford. Toward the end of her life, Ford estimated that she had helped deliver more than 7,000 babies over the course of her medical career.
The building was eventually spared from demolition and was moved from its original location to its current site as the museum, founded by Paul Stewart, who dedicated his life to documenting Black Western history after a chance encounter inspired him.
“So many people knew nothing about Black cowboys,” Rice-Allen said. Stewart “learned that one in four cowboys were African-American and basically dedicated his life to unearthing that information.”
Today, the museum’s exhibits trace what Rice-Allen calls the broader “Black migration west,” highlighting farmers, ranchers, miners, soldiers and entrepreneurs alongside the cowboys most visitors come to learn about.
While the popular image of the American cowboy remains overwhelmingly white in Hollywood film and television, Rice-Allen said the museum’s mission is to counter that narrative and acknowledge the legions of African Americans who contributed to shaping the American West.
“When we say migration west, we are also talking about the business owners,” she said. “We are talking about the industry, the farming, the ranching, the cowboy industry as well as the cowboys themselves, the community that supported them, the doctors, the attorneys, all of that piece.”
Understanding how Black cowboys emerged requires looking back to the mid 19th century, she said, when federal policy opened western lands.
“When the Homestead Act of 1862 said, ‘Go west, young man,’ it literally was a wide-open opportunity for any ethnic group,” Rice-Allen said. Former slaves, she explained, brought agricultural and livestock skills with them.
“They had that skillset within them to be able to handle cattle and horses and longhorns and buffalo and all of those animals that were here in the West,” she said.
The lifestyle itself, she added, was far from the glamour portrayed in most Hollywood productions.
“It was a very hard, hard life,” Rice-Allen said, emphasizing the museum’s grassroots origin.
Founder Stewart, who grew up in Clinton, Iowa, initially believed Black cowboys did not exist. As a child playing cowboys and Indians, Rice-Allen said, “he was told he had to always be the Indian, that there was no such thing as Black cowboys.”
After moving to Colorado and meeting a Black rancher through his cousin Earl Mann, Stewart began collecting artifacts and oral histories. His early collection was housed in his barbershop and continued to grow with donations. The collection eventually moved through several temporary homes before landing permanently in the Ford house in the early 1980s, after community leaders rallied to save the historic structure from demolition.
“It was a perfect fit that the house of Dr. Ford becomes the home of the Black American West Museum,” Rice-Allen said.
Among the many historical figures featured in the museum, Rice-Allen said several names tend to resonate most with visitors, such as Nat Love (a.ka. “Deadwood Dick”), Isom Dart, James Arthur Walker and George McJunkin.
“The most focused or the person that most people identify with might be Bill Pickett because of the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo,” she said.
Even today, Rice-Allen said many visitors arrive at the museum with little to no understanding of Colorado’s Black history, including many who are surprised “that there were Blacks in Colorado period,” she said, noting that westward migration patterns help explain how Black communities formed across the region.
“A lot of those little mountain towns literally got started because families, wives, husbands are like, I’m not going any further,” quipped Rice-Allen.
In today’s political climate, namely the pushback on diversity, equity and inclusion, in schools and in public policy, Rice-Allen believes preserving inclusive history is particularly essential now.
“It is American history,” she said. “Unless you are Indigenous, everybody’s from somewhere else, and you cannot erase that fact and you should not.”
She added that she sees no value in a so-called colorblind society, “You have to see difference, and you have to embrace it, and you have to recognize that we are all central in the survival of this United States,” she said
The museum is a 501c3 nonprofit that operates entirely with the support of a volunteer staff, relying mostly on partnerships, group tours and collaborations across Denver during Black History Month and throughout the year. Regular public hours are Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
For Rice-Allen, the work remains deeply personal.
“We are adamant about not allowing this history to go away,” she said, describing the museum as “a diamond in the rough.”
Continues Rice-Allen: “Denver’s Black history is truly a blessing to Colorado!”
