| Summary: | Curator Paul Wilbur Stewart was born on December 18, 1925 in Clinton, Iowa. In 1971, Stewart started a collection of materials from black cowboys of the American West in an old Denver saloon. His collection consisted of more than 35,000 items including personal artifacts, photographs, clothing, paintings, letters, legal documents, newspapers, and oral histories. He housed the "Paul Stewart Collection" in Denver's Clayton College for almost ten years. While at Clayton College, the collection become incorporated and acquired a board of directors. In the mid-1980s, the museum, The Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, moved to a more convenient location in Denver's Five Points historical district. Stewart served as a member of the Historical Records Advisory Board for Colorado and taught at Metropolitan State College in Denver. Stewart passed away on November 23, 2015, at age 89.
|
|---|
