Dearfield
A ghost town in Dearfield, Colorado, Dearfield is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Historic settlement and ghost-town heritage. It sits in the archive under ghost towns. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip. Names, dates and reports are filed together here, so the record stays honest about which is which.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Dearfield haunted?
No claims are filed here — the record keeps this place for its documented history, not for a haunting on file.
The record — long form
Dearfield is the last Black homestead colony on the plains — Oliver Toussaint Jackson's 1910 townsite on the Weld County prairie, named when Dr. Westbrook said the fields 'will be very dear to us.' Inspired by Booker T. Washington's back-to-the-land vision, Jackson bought 320 acres under the Desert Land Act and brought out the settlers who lived in dugouts and burned cow chips while they built the colony.
By 1915 there were forty-four cabins, a church, a school, Jackson's lunchroom, a concrete block factory — two hundred to three hundred people farming where the wind never stopped. The Dust Bowl ended it; Jackson offered the town to the government for a Japanese internment camp and when that failed too, the buildings came down for the lumber. Three structures stand — the gas station, the diner, and the founder's house — on the ground where the last attempt at agricultural colonization tried to grow.
The file keeps Dearfield: the 1910 colony, the dugout winters, the Dust Bowl end, and the three buildings left.
Dearfield is the archive's homestead file — the Black farming colony the dust took and the founder's house that stayed.
Why this file matters
Dearfield is the archive's homestead file — the 1910 Black colony and the last buildings.
A colony the Dust Bowl broke keeps its founder's house — the file's suggestion being that Dearfield's hold is the ambition: the last major attempt at Black agricultural colonization on the plains, and the lunchroom and the gas station still standing where two hundred people tried to make the prairie dear.
Dearfield is an extinct town and a historically black majority settlement in Weld County, Colorado, United States. It is 30 miles (48 km) east of Greeley. The town was formed by Oliver Toussaint Jackson, who desired to create a colony for African American homesteaders. In 1910, Jackson, a successful businessman from Boulder, filed on the homestead that later became the town and began to advertise for "colonists." The name Dearfield was suggested by one of the town's citizens, Dr. J.H.P. Westbrook, who was from Denver. The word dear was chosen as the foundation for the town's name due to the precious value of the land and community to the town's settlers.
Dearfield, ColoradoDocumented history
African American settlement declined during Depression and Dust Bowl. The town's documented rise and abandonment is the record the rest of the file stands on. The press recorded it; the detail stands as reported history. Sources including 'Colorado Ghost Towns: From Riches to Bust' carry the record. The record keeps it — history, not lore.
Media reportedColorado Tourism Office
Sources on file
- 01Colorado Ghost Towns: From Riches to BustColorado Tourism Office · tourism · A3
Field notes & open questions
Pass 1 discovery. Inclusion is for ghost-town heritage; no haunting claim is implied. Parcel access and coordinates remain unverified.