State: Colorado Interviewee: Loper, Frank Loper, Loper, Frank 

Aged Negro of Colorado Springs, was a slave of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America.

Loper does not know exactly how old he is, because all the Davis plantation records were destroyed by the Union soldiers in the maneuvers around Vicksburg. Remembers the siege and capture of Vicksburg, and several other engagements of the Civil War. His mother told him that he was born on a Friday in April sometime in the 1850's. So the Old Negro celebrates every Friday in that month each year to make sure he has the right birthday. 

The ex-slave's earliest recollection of the plantation was the receipt of a telegram by Jefferson Davis to notify him that he had been elected president of the Confederacy.According to Loper, before leaving for Richmond, Mr. Davis called the slaves together for a farewell address:

 "'In case of trouble to the plantation," Mr. Davis said, "I depend upon you all to take cars of the family, and if it becomes necessary, to fight for them.'"  

"We all cheered him, and promised that we would, because Mr. Davis was a kind master, and never would allow us to be whipped. 

"Whenever we were sick, he would come and see about us himself. 

"When the Union soldiers captured the plantation, a lot of trouble occurred between us and the soldiers, for we resented the soldiers taking our things. (Articles of Davis' property.)  

"My mother and me, and four brothers were just about to be traded off for some mules, and the deal was about completed, when the end of the war (probably Emancipation Proclamation) stopped the trade.

"After I was released from slavery, I stayed with the Davis family as a personal servant. :

"I went with one of the daughters (Davis) to Memphis Tennessee.

"At Memphis, I went to high school, and then we went to Denver, and I became a waiter in the hotel where the family stayed." 

Later Loper became headmaster and doorman at the Denver Hotel.

 Loper came to Colorado Springs at the request of Jefferson Hayes Davis, Vice-President of the First National Bank (1937) and grandson of Jefferson Davis.  

Throughout twenty years, Loper became well known to thousands of persons as doorman of the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs. It is said that he never forgot the name of a guest that he knew at the hotel. 

At present the aged negro holds an honorable, and easy post as doorman of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.