By Graham Hesselsweet | January 2020
On our journey in Colorado we have encountered numerous historical characters and areas. Museums of skiing, mining, and Colorado history are found all throughout Colorado. Among them is Barney Ford’s house, located in downtown Breckenridge, which serves as a monument to the perseverance through adversity and resourcefulness as well as kindness and compassion of Barney Ford, an early Colorado citizen. He began his life as a slave, then became an early racial activist supporting equality as well as a clever, wealthy entrepreneur although ravaged by conniving white thieves.
He was born in Virginia, and spent his childhood at the Darington plantation in South Carolina. His mother and a slave from a neighboring plantation helped him learn to read and write. He escaped slavery at seventeen years of age by way of the underground railroad, helping other slaves escape along the way. Later on, Barney made his way to Chicago, where he married Julia Lyon.
Barney had no last name, as slaves were given none. Julia Lyon endeavored to help him find a name and Barney found a steam engine train named the “Lancelot Ford” and adopted the name. His full name was now Barney Lancelot Ford. In 1851, Barney and Julia traveled to California to find gold. They could not travel the conventional route through the United States directly because he would be caught and returned to slavery; instead they traveled to Nicaragua, whereupon they found a desirable town and a business opportunity. They opened a hotel accompanied by a restaurant, which would prove to be one of Barney’s gifts as a serial entrepreneur.
At this point, Barney moved to Colorado, where he attempted to purchase a gold mine, but encountered racial prejudices which prevented them from owning a mine, so he and Julia traveled to Denver and started a successful barbershop which burned down in a fire. Barney opened several more businesses including but not limited to the Inter-Ocean Hotel, pictured below. Barney Ford was very influential, and elected to a political position in Colorado, and advocated for racial equality all while fighting discrimination his whole life.
By interesting coincidence, Barney Ford’s birthday is January 22 – the same as my dad’s – and we were fortuitously in Breckenridge during this time! We visited the Barney Ford Museum and witnessed Barney Ford’s house firsthand on Tuesday, January 25th. Inside, there were the very few known pictures of Barney Ford, and some furniture and wallpaper that resembled what he might have had. His house had several ornate Victorian gas stoves which were unusual for the time and very expensive. Barney Ford’s house was styled by a popular architect so that he rose in the morning seeing the sun from his bedroom windows, and ate dinner with the setting sun visible from his dining room windows. We had watched a documentary about his life, so we knew exactly what almost all of the photographs were! The video was made by Rocky Mountain PBS in 2021 and runs about an hour. You can watch it here.
The funny thing is, the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpting Championships were being held that week across the street, and Barney Ford’s house was an entry in the snow sculpting competition!
The Peace of Wild Things 