Clara Brown - Independent Business Woman

Clara Brown took in washing at Horshoe Bar, Miner's Ravine, Colorado. It wasn't that she was a washer woman...it was what she did with that that history remembers her for.

 Born in Virginia in 1803, Clara and her mother were sold to a man heading West.  Several owners later, she purchased her freedom and made her way to St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1859 Clara persuaded a part of gold prospectors to hire her as their cook.  At the age of 59, she rode on the back seat of a covered wagon, making her way across the plains.  She arrived in Central City, Colorado and began her laundry business.  In 1860 she moved to Mountain City, 40 miles away,  and paid a prospector to drive her there as his hired help.

After the Civil War, Clara searched for her family, people she had not seen in 60 years.  She found 34 relatives and brought them all by steamboat and wagon, which she bought and outfitted herself, across country to Denver...all on her laundry money.

In later years, she sponsored other wagon trains, helping other blacks to come West...financed only by her own "laundry money."

Next Time...Biddy Mason

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This Day in Pioneer History:  On June 22, 1876, embittered and impoverished, the once mighty Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna dies in Mexico City.