If you were to hop in your car and drive 30 minutes East of Greeley, right off of US-34, you’d come across a sign for Dearfield, Colorado.
While it may look like a ghost town to passersby, Dearfield was a bustling agricultural settlement in the 1910s and ‘20s founded by and for Black Americans.
Now the colony is the subject of a massive interdisciplinary research study called the Dearfield Dream Project – dedicated to preserving the site and using its artifacts to educate the public on the contributions of African Americans on the American Frontier.
“Dearfield was extremely well known among the African American population throughout the country and was very well-regarded, and it was considered to be a grand experiment that black people could take charge of their own destinies and make opportunities for not only themselves, but their families and the families, the generations to come,” said Bob Brunswig, an Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at UNC.
Brunswig and fellow UNC Professor George Junne have done extensive work on the Dream Project for over a decade. In that time, researchers across the state have made significant progress in studying and preserving the site, but there is still much work left to do.
Brunswig hopes future students and faculty at UNC continue to uncover Dearfield’s legacy.
“George and I aren’t getting any younger, so we need the next generation to be able to take over at UNC. And that’s kind of what I would like to happen,” Brunswig said.
“We’ll see.”
