2228 Pine St. - O. T. Jackson

O. T. Jackson was named after Oliver Toussaint, the Haitian revolutionary hero, which was a mouthful, so O. T. he became. He was born in Oxford, Ohio in 1862. His father was a landscaper descended from a line of freedmen since the Revolutionary War. His portrait is the third photo above. As a teenager, O. T. started working in restaurants in Cleveland where he met his first wife Sadie whose family was Oberlin College-educated.

The urge to go West brought them first to Idaho Springs and Denver where he operated restaurants and catering services, and ultimately to Boulder in 1892 where he lived for 15 years. O. T. first operated an oyster house on 13th Street and then the Stillman Hotel and Café on Pearl Street. In 1893 he was included in Boulder’s list of the state’s leading business and professional men that included the mayor, judge, county clerk, attorneys, merchants, and manufacturers, of which he was proud and the only Black on the list. In 1898 O. T. was engaged as the first manager of the Chautauqua Dining Hall, see the fourth photo above, able to hire a mostly all Black staff, giving them better jobs than they could otherwise obtain.

He and Sadie lived here at 2228 Pine Street for eight years. The second photo shows O. T. standing in front of the house which has not changed. Sadie was the real estate manager of the family also owning at one time the two houses to the west. She unfortunately died of a brain tumor in 1902 so O. T. moved out to his small farm next to his dinner club named Jackson’s Resort shown in the fifth photo above. The club featured musical entertainment located on what is now the northeast corner of 55th Street and Arapahoe Avenue, which was out in the country back then. In 1907 he closed the resort after ten years when the county went dry. O. T. then moved to Denver where, thanks to Governor Shafroth, he started his 20-year plus career as messenger for Colorado governors—with the notable exception of Klan governor Morley for two years in the 1920s.

His final enterprise was founding in 1910 the African American Dearfield agricultural colony in southeastern Weld County, which prospered at first but started failing after World War I. There is archaeological work going on there now, and the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. O. T. died in Greeley in 1948, having outlived two marvelous and talented wives, and without heirs.

Directions to Stop 19: Stop 19 is next door to the west.