Due to a devastating fire that claimed many buildings in 1863, the original structure was greatly destroyed. But the basic structure of the first two stories remains as it was constructed when Barney Ford ran his restaurant.
Barney L. Ford was a slave that escaped to Chicago and eventually to Denver. The Barney L. Ford building was the site in which Ford opened his first Denver restaurant. He built the People’s Restaurant in the same place, after the great fire destroyed the first building. With a barber shop and hair salon in the basement, a restaurant on the first floor and a saloon on the second floor, the business flourished. Ford gradually established himself as a businessman and eventually progressed into being a civil rights leader and politician.
