Stratton Elementary School was named after Winfield Scott Stratton, a Colorado gold miner. He discovered the site of the Independence Mine on July 4, 1891. He gave generously to the people and city of Colorado Springs.

Winfield Scott Stratton

Stratton was born in Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1848 and moved to Colorado Springs in 1868. Here he worked as a carpenter, although he originally set out for gold and silver. When he heard word of gold on Pikes Peak’s south slope, he made his big strike on July 4, 1891.

Although it was rough getting his Independence mine up and running, one it was going it was like an underground bank. Yet despite being rich, Stratton was also very generous. He wrote a check for Bob Womack when he was down on his luck, gave $15,000 to Horace A. W. Tabor when he was busted, and paid for food and shelter for thousands of people after the Cripple Creek fire.

In 1900 Stratton decided to sell Independence Mine to the Venture Corporation for $10 million, and just two years later Winfield Scott Stratton died on September 14, 1902. The company started to sell stocks, but the ore production decreased and the stocks crashed. The Venture Corporation tried to sue the Stratton estate claiming that the mine had been salted but lost the case.

His Legacy

Stratton left most of his estate to the Myron Stratton Home, an organization that “provided for poor persons who are without means of support and who are physically unable by reason of old age, youth, sickness or other infirmity to earn a livelihood.” He has many statues cast of him and was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame.
Places named after Stratton include:

• Stratton Park, Colorado Springs, CO
• Stratton Hall at Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO
• Winfield Scott Stratton Post Office, Colorado Springs, CO
• Stratton Spring, a mineral spring drilled in 1920, Colorado Springs, CO
• Stratton Elementary School, Colorado Springs, CO