Denver’s Five Points neighborhood experienced a huge influx of African American residents during the 1890s. But as the Denver housing market boomed in the 1920s, the section became predominately Black, and discriminatory housing practices kept Denver’s Black residents segregated there. By 1929, about fifty-five hundred of Denver’s seven thousand Blacks lived in the area, which was home to a growing district of Black businesses along Welton Street.

Garfield Devoe “G. D.” Rogers Sr. was born on January 23, 1885, in Thomaston, Georgia. Rogers parlayed his serial entrepreneurial talents into a brilliant career as hotelier and philanthropist. As owner and operator of the Rogers Hotel, he became one of the most prominent figures in Central Florida during the time of racial segregation.