Barney Ford

Barney Lancelot Ford (January 22, 1822 – December 14, 1902 ) was an escaped slave who became a wealthy entrepreneur and civil-rights pioneer in Colorado. Ford persevered in his quest for new businesses despite barriers due to racism, war, fire and unscrupulous partners. He was particularly interested in establishing barbershops, restaurants, and hotels. He also invested in mines. He was a civil rights pioneer, proponent of education, and a supporter of the Underground Railroad. He grew up on a plantation in South Carolina, where his mother was willing to accept the risk of personal harm to have Barney learn to read and write, perhaps instruction provided by an enslaved man. He is also said to have run away in 1848 when he was 26 years old. In that case, he was said to have been hired out to work on a Mississippi riverboat. When the boat was docked at Quincy, Illinois, he walked off the boat and traveled to Chicago. In 1851, Vanderbilt began developing a route of isthmus transit between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, through Nicaragua with a steam-boat sailing up San Juan River, warping her up the Castillo Rapids, and then placed on Lake Nicaragua. Ford ran a livery stable that was also an Underground Railroad station until 1860. He was the first black man in Colorado to serve on a federal grand jury in 1872.

Legacy

Barney Ford's contributions to Colorado are honored by a stained-glass window in the State Capitol.

Places named for him include: A school on Maxwell Place in Denver's Montbello neighborhood is named after him. A hill in Breckenridge where Ford had staked a mining claim, but was chased off of it. In 1964, it was named Barney Ford Hill. A residential high-rise named Barney Ford Heights.