Winfield Scott Stratton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)
Winfield Scott Stratton

W.S. Stratton, 1901.
Born July 22, 1848(1848-07-22)
Jeffersonville, Indiana
Died September 14, 1902 (aged 54)
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Winfield Scott Stratton (July 22, 1848- September 14, 1902) American prospector, capitalist, and philanthropist. He discovered the Independence Lode near Victor, Colorado on July 4, 1891, one of the richest gold mines ever located on earth, and became the Cripple Creek district's first millionaire in 1894.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Jeffersonville, Indiana, Stratton arrived in the Colorado Springs, Colorado area in 1868 and worked as a carpenter. His marriage ended shortly after the wedding when Stratton said that he was not responsible for his wife's pregnancy, and sent her back to her parents. He set out following the gold and silver rushes in Colorado, but had never been successful. On hearing word of gold on the south slope of Pike's Peak he made his big strike on July 4, 1891, near the present town of Victor, Colorado, in the Cripple Creek mining district.

He had a hard time getting started developing his Independence mine, but once going it was like an underground bank. Not only was Stratton rich, he was generous. After the Cripple Creek fire of 1896, Stratton paid for food and shelter for the thousands left homeless by the fire. He wrote a check for $5,000 to “Crazy Bob” Womack, the prospector who first discovered gold at Cripple, but was down on his luck. He gave $15,000 to Horace A. W. Tabor when Tabor was busted. Soon, however, folks began hitting on him and he became reclusive and eccentric. He drank and read a great deal, but almost never had guests or went out socially.

In 1900 Stratton sold the Independence mine to the Venture Corporation of London for $10 million. The Venture Corporation incorporated the property as Stratton's Independence Ltd. and sold shares on the London stock exchange. The ore reserves were discovered to be less than previously thought in late 1900, and the share price crashed. Venture Corporation later sued the Stratton estate, claiming that the mine had been salted, but lost in the US courts.

[edit] Legacy

W. S. Stratton Monument by Nellie Walker
W. S. Stratton Monument by Nellie Walker

When he died he left the bulk of his estate for the establishment of the Myron Stratton Home, for "the aged poor and dependent children." Myron Stratton was his father. This bequest was not popular in the reactionary climate of the times. After extended litigation from many adverse claimants (his son, the Venture Corporation, and thirteen women who claimed to have been secretly married to Stratton) only 6 million was finally available; but the home was established successfully in 1913.

Stratton's other legacies include the Colorado Springs & Interurban Railway, a trolley system connecting Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs; the ground on which the current Colorado Springs City Hall stands on; and money to complete the Short Line railroad.

A bronze statue of Stratton by Nellie Walker was placed on the grounds of his estate in 1909. The sculptor of the work ended up living at the Myron Stratton Home for the last years of her life. Another casting of Walker's statue of Stratton stands in downtown Colorado Springs.

Stratton was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame.[1]

Statue of Stratton in downtown Colorado Springs
Statue of Stratton in downtown Colorado Springs

Places named after Stratton include:

  • Stratton Park in Colorado Springs;
  • Stratton Hall at Colorado School of Mines, completed in 1904, was named after Stratton, who gave the school its first philanthropic gift of $25,000. He had been appointed as a CSM trustee in 1899 and was elected president of the board in 1901.[1]
  • Stratton Spring, a mineral spring drilled in 1920 at the loop where the trolleys turned around in Manitou Springs;
  • Winfield Scott Stratton Post Office in Colorado Springs, named by an act of Congress in 1995; Stratton had sold the land the post office was built on to the federal government at a fraction of its value with the understanding that it would be used for the post office.

[edit] Resources

[edit] Further reading

  • Waters, Frank [1937] (1972). Midas of the Rockies (trade paperback), reprint, Chicago: Sage Books. ISBN 0804005915. OCLC 357334. 
  • Strickler, David P [1963] (1964). The fight for the Stratton millions. Colorado Springs: J.J. Lipsey, Western Books. OCLC 4575871. 
  • Sprague, Marshall (1994). The king of Cripple Creek : the life and times of Winfield Scott Stratton, first millionaire from the Cripple Creek gold strike. Colorado Springs: Friends of the Pikes Peak Library District. ISBN 1884003044. OCLC 32174323. 
  • McKenna, Clara Anne (1998). A golden legacy : Winfield Scott Stratton and the Myron Stratton Home, 1848-1998. Colorado Springs: Myron Stratton Home. OCLC 40555637. 

W. S. Stratton carried this book in his saddlebags when he was prospecting: Plattner, Carl Friedrich (1888). Plattner's manual of qualitative and quantitative analysis with the blowpipe. From the last German edition, revised and enlarged, Henry Bedinger Cornwall (translator), New York: D. Van Nostrand. OCLC 2330081. 

[edit] References

  1. ^ Giving Societies. Colorado School of Mines. Retrieved on 2007-02-21.

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Stratton, Winfield Scott
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stratton, W.S.
SHORT DESCRIPTION Discovered the Independence Lode that began the Cripple Creek Gold Rush; philanthropist.
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1848
PLACE OF BIRTH Jeffersonville, Indiana
DATE OF DEATH September 14, 1902
PLACE OF DEATH Colorado Springs, Colorado