Winfield Scott Stratton started out poor and became one of the richest men in Colorado. How did he do that?

Winfield was a poor boy. He was born in Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1848. He was the 8th child born out of 12 children Seven died and only five of the children lived to be adults. His mother died years later of sadness to see her children die. His father built ships. After his mother died Winfield spent a lot of time at the shipyards. He and his father had a big fight. He tried to shoot his father but missed. About this time he heard men telling stories about the gold people were finding the west. So he went to Colorado to look for gold.

Winfield got married and moved to the Pike's Peak area and they had a son. Winfield got divorced in1891. Right after that he said, "When will anything good happen to me!"

For 20 years he mined during the summer and worked during the winter. He met a man who had a little money and they agree to be partners. Stratton went up into the mountains to look for gold and the man stayed in Colorado Springs and worked. They agreed to split whatever Stratton found.

One night when Stratton was leaning on a rock sleeping he had a dream about where to find gold. The next day, July 4,  he went looking and found the spot in his dream. It was near Cripple Creek. Just to be safe he claimed the place and named it the Independence and Washington Mines. He found a big rock and split it open. Inside was all sorts of gold he could imagine. He was called the Gold King.

He had so much money he decided to build a new city hall, a post office and some churches. He gave food to the poor and money to the schools and he built lots more stuff. But he was very lonely, unhappy man.

Right before he died in 1902 he told a young man, "Sell your mine now. Too much money is not good for any man."

We got our information from
The Colorado Chronicles, Volume 1: Famous Colorado Men
and from this web site.

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