Harvey Pipkin remembers the hustle and bustle of old Union Station in Denver with people all dressed up for trips to Cheyenne, St. Louis and Chicago. But the 91-year-old Pipkin remembers the tips most of all. “Oh, brother, the passengers tipped well,” said Pipkin, who, like brother Joseph, worked just after World War II as a dining car waiter on a Union Pacific train based out of Denver. Pipkin was among the thousands of African-American men who left the Deep South over a roughly 100-year span to find jobs on railroads in Denver.
Many bought homes and raised families that became the backbone of Denver’s Five Points community.
Their stories are chronicled in exhibits and a documentary called “Black on Track” at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden to mark Black History Month.
The museum wanted to show how closely tied African-Americans were to the railroads that expanded from the East and South into the Midwest and Rocky Mountains, museum officials said.
“To many of those men and their families, Denver was seen a mini-mecca of culture,” said Rick Bernstein, director of events and volunteers at the museum. “They hadn’t been treated so well in other parts of the country, so they saw Denver and the West as an opportunity for a better life.”
In fact, many of the first to head West after the Civil War were former slaves. Although they were legally free, the men were still restricted to certain jobs.
Most got on as Pullman porters who assisted passengers, especially on sleeping cars. Others, such as Harvey and Joseph Pipkin, were waiters.
“Joseph had the best job, because he worked in the private cars,” Harvey said.
Their father, Dennis Pipkin, came to Denver from Shreveport, La., in the early 1940s along with Joseph. Harvey and the rest of the family soon followed.
Dennis and Joseph found jobs on the railroad, and Joseph persuaded his brother to quit his job as a bellman at the Denver Athletic Club to join him.
“He told me the work paid a lot more and we could go places, so I said ‘OK,’ ” Harvey said. “I never regretted it. I loved the railroad.”
They would travel overnight to Chicago and St. Louis, which was a treat to Harvey and his work buddies. “We’d go off to clubs and meet all kinds of people,” he said.
In the meantime, they bought homes and started families. Joseph Pipkin’s family started Pipkin Braswell Funeral Home & Cremation, a fixture in the Five Points area.
The migration of black railroad workers to Denver lasted until the early 1960s, when passenger rail started losing customers, Bernstein said.
But their influence helped shape Five Points, said Daphne Rice-Allen, board chair of the Black American West Museum And Heritage Center. They joined other blacks who were doctors, lawyers, ministers and others to carve out a niche in the Denver area.
“When blacks moved to Colorado, we were like Latinos and Jews — we were all relegated to particular sections of the town. They all evolved into a community where people went to church, went to the dry cleaners and socialized,” Rice-Allen said.
Harvey Pipkin said he was laid off from Union Pacific after about eight years on the job. But that didn’t stop him from putting down roots.
He’s worked a series of jobs and lived in a small home off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard for about 40 years, surrounded by photos of his late wife, his son and daughter. A devoted group of nieces and nephews tend to him.
Still, Harvey covets his memories of his old railroad days.
“It was fun, all the coming and going, all the people I met,” he said. “I wished I could have stayed longer. I loved the railroad.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907, mwhaley@denverpost.com or twitter.com/montewhaley
