Meet Barney Lancelot Ford (1822-1902) who escaped slavery and made a fortune in the Old West, over and over again, known as the “Black Baron of Colorado.”
Barney was the son of a plantation owner and a mother, a house slave, who knew that education was the key to freedom. His first “primer” was a dictionary. Barney learned to read with the help of another slave on an adjoining plantation. The wife of his first owner sold him to Matt Bartlet for $490. Matt was a trader and took Barney with him when he traveled.
Barney was given an education, went to church with this Quaker family, worked on riverboats, and learned the art of hospitality. An actor on a riverboat helped Barney escape by dressing him like a woman, and they simply walked off the riverboat to freedom.
Later, Barney went to Chicago, worked as a barber, and met free Black, Henry O. Wagoner, who introduced him to his sister-in-law, Julia, who became his wife. Julia encouraged him to choose his own name, so he chose Lancelot Ford after the train engine. While working as a barber, Barney Lancelot Ford heard stories of the Gold Rush in Colorado and was off to find his fortune.
Barney joined a wagon train to Colorado’s Pikes Peak Gold Rush in 1860 and arrived in what would become Denver as one of the first Black prospectors. But he was barred from mining claims, so he pivoted to working in hospitality.
He built the Cosmopolitan Restaurant and Barber Shop, which was a luxurious spot for miners and dignitaries in Denver in 1863. Additionally, he built the Inter-Ocean Hotel in Denver in 1874, with a second location in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The town’s boom-bust cycle caused Barney to go bankrupt.
By 1880, he built the Ford’s Restaurant and Chop House in Breckenridge, which helped him rebuild his fortune. Nothing could stop this man from rising from despair to success; every time he faced an obstacle, he made more money. Fires destroyed many properties, each time he rebuilt and earned the name, “The Black Baron of the Rocky Mountains.”
Barney’s successes were beyond business; he was a civil rights advocate for equality, worked on the Underground Railroad, fought for the right to vote for Black men, and founded a Black school for children in the community.