Paul Stewart — Black American West Museum & Heritage Center

Tourism Star Award Recipient — 2000

As he is fond of telling the story, when he grew up as a boy in Iowa, Paul Stewart was always made an “Indian” when playing “cowboys and Indians” because his friends said there were no Black cowboys.

Years later, while working as a barber in Denver, Paul met an older African American cowboy who had worked on the great cattle drives. From him, Paul learned that not only were there Black cowboys, but that about a third of the cowboys on the great cattle drives were African Americans, many of them freed slaves who migrated west after the Civil War.

This encounter started Paul on a life-long quest that was to take him over 100,000 miles around the country. Armed with a tape recorder, he sought out and interviewed every living Black cowboy he could find. He collected old photographs, guns, boots, clothing, uniforms and anything he could discover that was used by Black pioneers in the West.

At first, his collection was housed on a Denver campus and finally it was loaned as the founding collection to the Black American West Museum & Heritage Center. Located in the former home of Dr. Justina Ford (Denver’s first Black woman doctor), the museum has been able to tell the forgotten story of Black cowboys, as well as detail all the contributions that African Americans have made in settling the West. Smithsonian Magazine wrote a 10-page article about Paul and his collection, calling it one of the best collections of Black history in America. The museum he founded has been featured in dozens of magazines and television programs and is influencing the way the history of the West is being taught in schools and portrayed in films. In fact, a character based on Paul Stewart was used in a recent Hollywood movie, The Posse, to introduce the story of Black cowboys and lawmen in the Old West.

Paul Stewart has been a great credit to Denver’s tourism industry, creating a museum that has generated press around the world and brought to life an exciting chapter of American history.

The profile of each Tourism Star is reflective of the time of the award.