KKK Ledger 1

Collection Highlight

Ku Klux Klan Ledgers

Greater Denver area, 1920s

History Colorado holds two Ku Klux Klan membership books for the Greater Denver area and beyond. The information inside them, which was collected for administrative purposes around 1924 through 1926, dates from the peak of the Klan's influence in Colorado. Together they have nearly 30,000 entries across more than 1,300 pages that record the names and other personal details, such as home and business addresses, of people affiliated with the KKK in metropolitan Denver and other areas. While the first 69 entries appear to be missing, the ledgers otherwise appear to be completely intact.

All of this information is now available online in searchable PDF format. Links are available below, including an interactive map of entries.

Additional resources available below include discussion guides for educators and learners, upcoming events and programs, and a selection of articles and other materials. These items were compiled to frame the ledgers in a context of resistance to oppression, and emphasize the voices and perspectives of those targeted and silenced by 20th-century organized discrimination in Colorado, namely people identified by Klan members as atheist, Black, Catholic, communist, Hispano and Latino, LGBTQ, immigrant, Jewish, and Muslim. 

In a spirit of more actively naming and confronting systems of inequality, History Colorado aims to make these items available as freely and widely as possible. In keeping with our grounding virtues, we hope to unlearn harmful long-held ideas and practices through this sharing process. 

Accessing the Ledgers

The links below will open a PDF of each book in a new window. These files can be viewed online or downloaded. History Colorado’s detailed catalogue records for these books are available here (book one) and here (book two).

Entries from both ledgers have been combined into the Ledger Index, which has been organized by last name. Researchers can also search within the PDFs by application number and name exactly as it appears within the ledgers

Interactive Map and Data

This interactive map features the residential addresses of all members listed within the ledgers. With this, you can explore how they were spread across the state, as well as view additional information. Please not that it is possible the addresses represented on this map do not match exactly with addresses today. Many streets and buildings have been moved or removed in the last century.

This .zip file contains several Excel worksheets containing data derived from the ledgers that can be used for research purposes. Latitude and longitude coordinates have been provided for known addresses. Feel free to download it and utilize our data for your own research.

Klan Membership Ledger Data
Guide for Searching the KKK Ledgers Index

Events

Additional Resources from History Colorado

  • A group of African American teenage campers and their counselors from Camp Nizhoni pose by Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad tracks and a railway stop near the entrance to Lincoln Hills (Gilpin County), Colorado. They wear dresses, blouses, shorts, and wide-brimmed hats; some hold jackets and coats. Shows luggage on a wooden platform.

    Health, Recreation, Education, and Uplift: Lincoln Hills and Black Recreation in the Colorado Mountains

    When temperatures soared in cramped, noisy cities, Colorado’s higher elevations promised chilly nights and mild days spent fishing, camping, and hiking under shady pine trees. Unlike their white counterparts, however, African Americans could not head just anywhere in the mountains. Not far outside of Denver, Lincoln Hills, a vacation community developed for Black people, represented both an escape from the city and an escape from segregation.

  • Thumbnail

    Two Men Who Helped Pave the Way for African American Activists in Denver

    In light of Black History Month and the ongoing struggle for racial equality, it seems fitting to explore Denver’s rich history of African American activism. Although Denver is not commonly associated with civil rights activism, black Coloradans have long been active participants in the struggle against racial oppression. This was no less true during the first half of the twentieth century.

  • Lincoln Hills entrance sign

    A Shelter from Harsh Times

    Though Colorado’s African American population avoided the most severe abuses of Jim Crow and segregation in the early twentieth century, they nonetheless experienced significant overt discrimination. They faced limited housing, employment, and recreation opportunities and lived under state and local governments controlled by the Ku Klux Klan for much of the 1920s. Still, Colorado’s African Americans flourished, building a strong community with thriving businesses.

  • Ku Klux Klan members march down Larimer Street in Denver, 1926.

    The Colorado Women of the Ku Klux Klan

    Editor's note: In this article, originally published in Denver Inside and Out (History Colorado, 2011), Betty Jo Brenner illuminates the history of women's roles in sustaining white supremacy in the early twentieth century. 

  • Image of the cover of the book, Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado, by Robert Alan Goldberg. The background is black and there is a silhouette of five hoods with eye holes, which also somewhat suggest the mountains of the Front Range.

    From the KKK to The Proud Boys

    What A Forty-Year-Old Book on the Colorado Klan Teaches Us About Hate Groups Today

"Colorado Under the Klan" by James H. Davis →

This article first appeared in the Spring 1965 edition of the Colorado Magazine. It highlights the extent to which members of the Ku Klux Klan permeated the government offices, both elected and appointed, of Colorado during the 1920s.
 

Colorado Magazine - Spring 1965

Lincoln Hills Primary Resource Set →

This collection of primary, contemporary resources details the history of Lincoln Hills, a mountain resort for African Americans. It includes excerpts of larger documents and full text of shorter sources, as well as detailed annotations by civil rights attorney Dani Newsum.
 

Lincoln Hills Primary Source Set (grades 4,8,9-12)

Stories of Hate and Resistance: An Annotated Bibliography of Newspaper Articles Documenting the Klan in Colorado →

The Ku Klux Klan came to Colorado in 1921, and took advantage of existing prejudices in its rapid rise to prominence. Across the state, newspapers documented the KKK’s rapid rise, its seizure of state and local political offices, and its equally rapid decline. This collection features excerpts from Colorado newspapers of the early 1920s, along with annotations detailing the historic context and audience of these articles.

Stories of Hate and Resistance newspaper resources

 

Other Sources

Colorado Experience: KKK

Documentary from Rocky Mountain PBS

Tell Us Your Story

If you or your family have a story about an experience with the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado, please consider sharing with History Colorado so that we can add your voice to the history of our state that people will look back on in the future. In addition to completing this reflection, you may submit additional photographs, videos, or comments at the end. We also welcome you to continue the conversation with us by emailing us at curator@state.co.us.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I find out from examining the ledgers?

The ledgers can help people draw conclusions about commonalities and differences between people who joined the KKK, the neighborhoods in which they lived, the places they worked, and other trends. They support genealogical, historical, and sociological research as well as other forms of inquiry.

The ledgers make some important and difficult history more accessible. They connect specific locations, individuals, and institutions, including History Colorado, to an organization that can otherwise seem mysterious, abstract, and impersonal. The recorded business information associated with work locations such as the State Capitol, City Fire Department, and State Hospital—as well as the sheer number of entries in the ledger, which cover Denver’s entirety—also illustrate the widespread presence of the KKK in the everyday lives of Denverites during the 1920s. 

What should we learn from these ledgers?

History Colorado serves not as an authority on what to take away from their existence, but as a gateway to individual and collective research, reflection, and interpretation about their implications and meanings. While we take responsibility for sharing and framing the ledgers in constructive and appropriate ways, we know that engagement around these materials is a process that our community gives to each other and to History Colorado—not the other way around.
 

Can I see the ledgers in person?

The physical ledgers, which were donated to History Colorado anonymously in 1946 through a staff member of the Rocky Mountain News, are currently on view in Colorado Stories at the History Colorado Center. 

The ledgers are part of a KKK-focused manuscript collection of loose printed material and ephemera dating from 1918 to 1997. These additional materials include sheet music, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and other booklets used for KKK advertising in Colorado and nationwide. They can be viewed by appointment in the Stephen H. Hart Research Center at the History Colorado Center. 
 

Is this the first time this information has been available?

No. Researchers have been able to access these ledgers in person since at least 1990. What’s different now is that the information is more accessible and accessible in new ways. 
 

Why are you sharing these materials?

Like the communities that surround it and hold it accountable, History Colorado is part of an important process to confront systems of inequality and seek more justice for all people in Colorado. We believe these materials can support this process. We share them to facilitate discussion, reflection, and research that helps people in Colorado to more readily determine and achieve the future they desire for their communities and their state.

I have feedback about this work. How can I share that with you?

History Colorado’s Curatorial Services and Collections Access team can be reached via curator@state.co.us.

 

 

Contact Us:

Stephen H. Hart Research Center →
Email cosearch@state.co.us or call on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday between 10-3pm at (303)866-2305.

History Colorado Center →
For general information about programs, exhibits, and services, please call 303-HISTORY (303-447-8679).

For educators →
josie.chang-order@state.co.us

 

Sponsors & Credits:

This project was made possible in part by an award from the Colorado Historical Records Advisory Board, through funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), National Archives Records Administration.

History Colorado thanks its Community Advisors for this work: Dr. Brenda J. Allen, Professor Emerita, Anschutz Medical Center; Ms. Ellington, community member; Dr. Claire Garcia, Colorado College; Sue Parker Gerson, Mountain States - ADL; Dr. Nicki Gonzales, Regis University, History Colorado State Historian’s Council; Johnny Humphrey, The Center on Colfax; Rabbi Rachel Kobrin, Congregation Rodef Shalom; Reynaldo Mireles, SAGE USA; Derek Okubo, City and County of Denver, Human Rights and Community Partnerships; P. Barclay Jones, Chinook Fund; Tara Raju, Mountain States - ADL; and Sandra Shreve, Calvary Baptist Church.

Image Credit: Ku Klux Klan Membership Ledgers. Photo by Katie Bush courtesy History Colorado, MSS.366