Representing underrepresented communities Wendall “Wink” Hamlet (left) poses for a photo with his brother, Clarence, in the 1950s at Lincoln Hills in Pinecliffe, Colorado. PHOTO COURTESY OF DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS[/caption]

History Colorado’s State Historic Preservation Office has been awarded $74,998 by the National Park Service as part of a recent round of Underrepresented Community Grants. The State Historic Preservation Office plans to fund a statewide survey of Green Book sites in Colorado (the locations where African Americans could stay safely while traveling in segregated America), as well as to nominate one such location to both the National and State Registers of Historic Places.

This funding allows the State Historic Preservation Office to build on the Colorado African American Travel and Recreation Resources Survey Plan completed in 2021. This plan from 2021 established a blueprint for documenting the history and experiences of African American travelers in Colorado during the time of segregation.

This project is the first statewide effort in Colorado’s history to focus exclusively on African American travel and recreation resources, which have been underresearched and underrepresented in the past. So far the majority of identified travel and recreation resources for African Americans have been clustered in metropolitan areas, such as Denver, Pueblo and Colorado Springs, but this survey will also investigate locations in rural parts of the state to help expand our understanding of this history.

“The stories of these locations where African Americans could find refuge while traveling across a segregated America are an important facet of our shared history. They were truly tiny oases of safety in an unsafe world,” said Patrick Eidman, Chief Preservation Officer and Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer. “This grant will allow us to engage with Colorado’s Black community, and highlight the important history of these places so we can better understand this difficult period of history and how African Americans adapted, and persevered despite widespread racism and racially motivated violence.”

Lincoln Hills, in Gilpin County, was one of the safe holiday refuges for Black vacationers, who came there from across the country to enjoy the mountain air at Wink’s Lodge.

This survey is part of a larger effort by the State Historic Preservation Office to prioritize the preservation of communities that shaped the evolution of our state, particularly rural communities and those that have been historically underrepresented within the field of preservation. As of 2020 only eight percent of locations listed on the National Register of Historic Places represented communities of color and/or women, and only five percent of properties listed in the Colorado’s State Register of Historic Places were directly related to such communities.

This latest award marks the third occasion that History Colorado has received a Underrepresented Community Grant from the National Park Service. Previous grants were received in 2021 and 2017 to nominate properties associated with the women’s suffrage movement across that state and Hispano communities in the San Luis Valley respectively. In total these three grants amount to $167,201 in project funding.

Since 2014 the National Park Service has awarded $5.75 million through the Underrepresented Communities Grants program with a goal of funding the identification, planning, and development of nominations to the National Register of Historic Places for diverse communities. A full list of grants awarded by the National Park Service is available at https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/12-15- 22-urc-grants.htm.

About History Colorado

History Colorado is a division of the Colorado Department of Higher Education and a 501(c)3 non-profit that has served more than 75,000 students and 500,000 people in Colorado each year. It is a 143-year-old institution that operates eleven museums and historic sites, a free public research center, the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, and the History Colorado State Historical Fund (SHF), which is one of the nation’s largest state-funded preservation programs of its kind. More than 70% of SHF grants are allocated in rural areas of the state.

History Colorado’s mission is to create a better future for Colorado by inspiring wonder in our past. We serve as the state’s memory, preserving and sharing the places, stories, and material culture of Colorado through educational programs, historic preservation grants, collecting, outreach to Colorado communities, the History Colorado Center and Stephen H. Hart Research Center in Denver, and ten other museums and historic attractions statewide. History Colorado is one of only six Smithsonian Affiliates in Colorado.

Visit HistoryColorado.org, or call 303-HISTORY, for more information.