Denver Heights holds its place in history as a hub of Black professionals, entrepreneurship [Video]

SAN ANTONIO – Beginning in the 1920s, Denver Heights was known as a predominantly African American neighborhood full of doctors, lawyers, teachers, lawmakers and other professionals.

Frank Dunn, who grew up in Denver Heights, remembered another profession that inspired him as a child: Pullman Porters.

“I watched how neat they dressed with their uniforms,” Dunn recalled. “I thought that was the greatest thing ever.”

Pullman Porters worked on Pullman trains, which, at the time, were segregated.

They collected tickets and brought passengers food and drink.

“When they would get off the train at Sunset Station or St. Paul Square, they would need a place to stay. They would board in boarding houses in Denver Heights,” University of Texas at San Antonio professor, local civil rights and East Side native Mario Salas, who once lived in Denver Heights, …