Like all ghost-town ruins, the abandoned buildings of Dearfield evoke a melancholy sense of promise unfulfilled and hard work unrewarded. But there’s a particular poignancy to these crumbling structures. They are all that remain of the largest African American colony in Colorado—and one of the most successful in the entire West.

Boulder businessman Oliver Toussaint Jackson founded the settlement in 1910, inspired by Booker T. Washington’s vision of African Americans living free in self-sufficient agrarian communities. The Dearfield colonists sought the same things all other farmers and ranchers did—independence, a piece of land, and a decent living—but they also wanted a refuge from social exclusion and outright racism. By 1920 Dearfield was thriving, with about 700 residents, a downtown business district, churches, schools, and profitable farms and ranches.

But Dearfield eventually succumbed to the same forces—drought and the Great Depression—that devastated the whole Great Plains region. By 1940 the town’s population stood at twelve—including Jackson, who clung to his dream. He and his wife continued to live in Dearfield, operating the diner and gas station until his death in 1948. Jackson’s niece kept the place running for another twenty-five years, still seeking to redeem her uncle’s dream of freedom for his people.