Echoing PoppaGater, Blacks were rare in the West. New Mexico and southern Colorado had a number of lynchings of crooks and rustlers in the period from the Civil War to about 1905, but none was Black. There were a number of Latinos, but at that time they constituted the majority of the population and a couple of the villages were noted for thieves and murderers. Stories of the thieves and hangings were stories we loved to hear from out grandparents.

The capitol city of Santa Fe in New Mexico in the 1930s had one Black family, who came with the railroad, and to most of us remained unseen. I remember that as a kid, we were curious about what a Black man looked like, but we never saw one, unless we went on a railroad trip. The Santa Fe railroad, with its Black porters and waiters, passed about 20 miles from Santa Fe, with the stop at Lamy. The D & R G W (Denver and Rio Grande Western) had a narrow gauge line that came into Santa Fe, but by my time, I believe that it was freight only.