Winfield Scott Stratton, Colorado’s Mystifying Millionaire

c 2023 by Jan MacKell Collins

Colorado, and especially the Cripple Creek District, are well familiar with Winfield Scott Stratton, the man whose Independence Mine made him a millionaire almost overnight. Between that and his other mines, Stratton’s daily income once peaked at some $12,000 per day. Per. Day. But so unlike other rich mining men who openly flaunted their wealth, threw their weight around, and paraded around the world as some of the most affluent socialites of their time, Stratton’s money bothered him a great deal. So did the slew of women, both wicked and chaste, who hoped to wile him into marrying them, or at least giving them money.

A carpenter by trade, Stratton began dabbling in mining as early as 1874. Urged by his friend, Bob Womack, Stratton arrived in Cripple Creek in 1891 divorced, broke, and tired. He was, after all, already in his 40’s when he invested in the Independence Mine. Within an amazingly short time, Stratton was wealthy far beyond his means, or anyone else’s for that matter. But he never saw his wealth as a healthy asset. “Too much money is not good for any man,” he once said. “I have too much and it is not good for me.” So rather than join the elite jetsetters who built extravagent mansions along Millionaires Row in Colorado Springs and traveled the world, Stratton continued to live a somewhat simple life, preferring to donate his wealth rather than flaunt it. Carefully choosing his own charities, on his own time, was the ultimate power the man could excercise.

For nearly 11 years, everyone wanted a piece of the man who bascially hid from sight in his modest homes (first at the town of Indpendence and later in Colorado Springs), morosely sipping whiskey and finding ways to terrorize his female house staff. It wasn’t the women’s faults, by any means. It was just that, especially after he became obscenely rich, Stratton felt like everyone was out to get his money. And no doubt some of them were. Even today, the female historians among us must sometimes wonder if, had we known him, we could bring him out of his melancholy state, tame his temper, and perhaps even marry right into his fat pocketbook. Probably not. Although he immersed himeself in culture, Stratton was not so much prone to attending the theater, or any public affairs. His social activities, from what is known about him, tended to focus on floosies like the future madam Laura Evens of Salida and other wanton women. And, anyone familiar with the zodiac signs knows that Cancers (Stratton was born July 22) in general hide in their shells and will not come out no matter how long or hard you poke them with a stick. Only they can choose when to come out into the light of day, and Stratton was no exception.

In spite of his refusal to follow the Big Book of Societal Rules for Millionaires of the 1890’s, Winfield Scott Stratton was indeed a generous man. For a few years, his good deeds were the stuff of gossip and speculation among his peers and fellow citizens. There was the time, for instance, that he spied his laundress bringing his freshly pressed shirts to him on foot. Upon learning that the lady could not afford so much as a bicycle to transport her goods, Stratton was said to have purchased the two-wheeled vehicles for every washerwoman in Colorado Springs. He also was known to reward his favorite employees by purchasing homes for them. Such sweet stories were countered by the one about the time Stratton and some dame (allegedly Madam Hazel Vernon of Cripple Creek) stumbled into the prestigious Brown Palace Hotel in Denver during a wretched storm. Stratton was ordered by an imperious employee to remove himself and his muddy boots from the lobby. The temperamental tycoon retaliated by purchasing the hotel outright so he could fire the employee. But Stratton’s unbridled generosity during Cripple Creek’s two disastrous fires in 1896 is a bonafide example of how he really did care for those with less, and jumped without hesitation to the rescue for thousands of people.

The two infamous fires of Cripple Creek, which destroyed much of the town, happened within four days of each other during April of 1896. Lost were nearly the entire business district along Bennett Avenue, the red-light district along Myers Avenue, and hundreds of homes. Five thousand people were left with no house, no food, no clothing. Although some of them filtered over to the nearby towns of Anaconda, Elkton and Victor, supplies throughout the whole district quickly ran dangerously low. Stratton, who was in Colorado Springs at the time, had gathered with his fellow millionaires to listen to the news via the primitive telephone system. As the devastation of the first fire during the afternoon on April 25th was described in detail, Stratton jumped into action and formed a relief committee like no other. Billing everything to himself, he lost no time in procuring a special two-car train to make the needed trip to Cripple Creek. In the meantime, volunteers were rounded up to gather as many supplies as they could.

Within hours, cases of food, blankets, tents and clothing were stacked into freight wagons and hauled to the Colorado Midland Depot at nearby Colorado City. It is said Stratton even commissioned Colorado College students to collect more food door-to-door, and that the effort took every available loaf of bread in Colorado Springs. The train began chugging towards Cripple Creek at 5 p.m., with stops at Chipeta Park, Green Mountain Falls, Crystola and Woodland Park to pick up more supplies. As the train made its way up Ute Pass, well-wishers ran alongside, tossing even more items to workers on the cars. At Divide, the goods were transferred quickly to Midland Terminal trains as more items were added.

The sight of Stratton’s relief train chugging into Cripple Creek that night must have brought tears to many an eye. It took most of the night to distribute supplies, which were handed out at the Midland Terminal Depot on Bennett Avenue (one of only a couple of buildings to survive the fire) and loaded onto wagons. Another relief train departed Colorado Springs at 2 a.m. with even more supplies, including furniture, liquor and cooking utensils. Even more supplies were sent after the second fire on April 29 burned more homes and businesses. Whether he liked it or not, Stratton’s selfless act made him a hero to many in the Cripple Creek District.

Naturally Stratton’s actions generated a lot of hero worship for the man in Colorado Springs, as well. During his time there, Stratton shaped so-called “Little London’s” distinguished reputation as a city of wealth by providing land on which to erect such opulent buildings as the City Hall, the El Paso County Courthouse, the Post Office, and two other important structures he was associated with: the Mining Exchange Building and the Independence Building. In addition, he bought and significantly improved the Colorado Springs and Interurban Railway, and oversaw construction of a professional baseball stadium where the “Colorado Springs Millionaires” team played. It is doubtful, however, that he ever attended a game. In fact, about the only place he ever went when he left his home was to his office in the Independence Building just a few blocks away. And when a lavish banquet was later thrown in his honor at the prestigious Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs, they say, Stratton stubbornly declined to attend.

For the rest of his life, Stratton remained as reclusive as ever. Curious is that he does not seem to appear in the 1900 census, anywhere. Odds are that he was holed up in his home on Weber Street in Colorado Springs (which sadly no longer stands), and outright refused to answer the door. That command would have been extended to his housekeeper, Eliza – the only one of his employees to put up with his shenannigans and who dared to talk back to him. It was a trait that Stratton would secretly admire. But by 1902, he was even more withdrawn and suffering from liver disease – the penalty for drinking like a fish in his efforts to escape from his wealthy status. He died on September 14 and, quite possibly against his wishes, was buried with much ceremony in Colorado Springs’ Evergreen Cemetery.

Stratton’s last great contribution was leaving money in his will to build the Myron Stratton Home, an expansive institution with beautiful grounds where orphaned children and the poor of El Paso and Teller counties could live and be treated with respect. He would be mortified if he knew that his last act of kindness was immediately cast into litigation for nearly 11 years as would-be heirs, supposed wives, and other so-called constituents battled over his fortune. In the end, however, the Myron Stratton Home won out and remains among the best assisted living facilities today, with private residences and other amenities seldom seen in the land of elder care. Today, Stratton’s buildings, a statue, Stratton Park, and other landmarks in Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek pay tribute to Winfield Scott Stratton. But it remains a shame that one of Colorado’s biggest, and most eccentric, philanthropists died without realizing the true appreciation so many felt for him, and his unwanted money.

Image courtesy of the Myron Stratton Home

Rufus Porter, The Hard-Rock Poet of Colorado’s Cripple Creek District

c 2023 by Jan MacKell Collins

Parts of this article are excerpted from Cripple Creek District: Last of Colorado’s Gold Booms.

“I ask no miracles of the muse,

I would not write like an old Khayyam,

The little talent that I use

Must show me only as I am.”

                        —Rufus Porter

As Colorado history goes, Cripple Creek District in Colorado remains at the forefront as the site of the last great gold boom in the Centennial State. Between 1891 and 1920, hundreds of mines, 25 towns and camps, three railroads, and thousands of people infiltrated a 24-square mile area, and generated a history quite unlike no other. Today, collectors of Cripple Creek memorabilia can consider themselves lucky to have the works of Rufus L. Porter among their treasures. From his arrival in Colorado in about 1915 to his death in 1979, Porter served as a blue-collar historian for the Cripple Creek District. Today, his home-spun yarns and poetry about life as it really was in the Cripple Creek District have survived in the way of columns for the Colorado Springs Gazette, as well as his own self-published books, as a crucial part of the District’s history.

Born in 1897 in Minnesota, Porter’s family had moved to Colorado Springs by the time his sister, Vera, was born in 1915. Two years later, Porter visited the Cripple Creek District and became enamored with the fading gold district. For a time, he remained in Colorado Springs, marrying his wife, Martha, and working as a coal miner in one of the 50 mines in the Rockrimmon and and Cragmoor area. By the time the Porter’s second child, Robert, was born in 1926, the family had migrated to Cripple Creek District where Rufus leased his own mine. Porter would later recall that the family initially stayed at the once-prestigious National Hotel in Cripple Creek, as well as the Baltimore Hotel in Victor, before moving into a house in Cripple Creek.

Following the death of their young daughter Doris, in 1932, the Porters returned to Colorado Springs for a few years (another daughter, also had died at the age of four years in 1925). Several years and two more children later, the Porter family returned to the Cripple Creek District. This time they settled in Goldfield, and Rufus went to work for the famous Cresson Mine. By his own account, he also worked at the Jay Gould Mine on Tenderfoot Hill, the Little Longfellow, and the Rigi. In between, he leased properties on Bull Hill and in other areas. He was working at the Vindicator Mine in 1940 when he fell 50 feet down the No. 12 shaft, breaking four vertebrae.

It took some two years for Porter to recover from his injuries, during which time he returned to Colorado Springs and eventually got a job as Chief Metallurgist for the Golden Cycle Mill. But he had also taken up a hobby, writing. For the next several years, Porter scribbled scores of poems and anecdotes about the Cripple Creek District, writing ballads about the people he knew and focusing on the District’s many colorful characters. In 1953, he published his first book, The Fiddler on Wilson Creek. The tome was a collection of poetry illustrated with historic images and Porter’s own photos depicting landscapes and characters of the district. A year later, a second book, Gold Fever, was published as well, and included tales of local folklore, as well as Porter’s recollections of his time in the District.

Now, Rufus balanced his time in Colorado Springs with extended trips to the Cripple Creek District, where he was known as the “Hard Rock Poet” and quite a colorful character himself. Of Cripple Creek’s annual Donkey Derby Days celebration in 1954, he would remember attending with his beloved donkey, Esau. “We won first prize in the whisker contest and second in the parade,” Porter he said. Those who remember the well-known billboards of the past advertising Cripple Creek will recall a miner and his donkey proclaiming, “Yonder is Cripple Creek!” That was, indeed, Rufus and Esau.

Sadly, Porter’s son Robert, a Navy veteran, was working in a local mine when he was accidentally electrocuted later that same time. Rufus battled his grief by even more. In the interest of discretion, Rufus rarely “named names,” preferring his own self-styled nicknames for the people whose stories he told. Thus the true identities of such characters as Bohunk Stan, Honest John the High-Grader, Greasy Miller of Gillette, Buffalo Brown, Old Man Oliver, Bathless Bill, Sloppy Frank and Kettle Belly Martin have been lost to history. Careful examination of the works, however, will also reveal several true historic figures—Sam Stumpff, Pat McCain, Dan O’Hara, and Tom and Ace Morris, just to name a few.

The characters in Porter’s books added much flavor to his perspective on the very real aspects of gold camp life. His often humorous anecdotes covered a wide range of real-life adventures, from fishing and hunting to high-grading, from gambling to ghost towns. He even had a favored camping spot, which he called “Poet’s Peak.” Porter was blatantly honest, too. Of the bawdy district of Cripple Creek in the face of government officials trying to ignore their naughty past, Porter wrote,

“Now sin and lust I ain’t defendin’,

But history must be fair,

And there ain’t no use in pretendin’

That Myers Avenue wasn’t there.”

In 1961 Porter published yet another booklet, Pay Dirt. As with his previous books, most of Porter’s stories were told with a tongue-in-cheek style. The tales could, however, occasionally take a gruesome turn. In writing of the “big Swede” who suffered a stroke and died in a shaft of the Golden Cycle Mine, Porter wrote, “…after workin’ for an hour without bein’ able to budge him, we decided that the only way we’d ever get him out of there was to saw his legs off. But by that time rigor mortis had set in…since he had no known kin we considered it more humane to leave him where he was…”

Following the closing of the Carlton Mill in 1962, Porter’s writings eventually caught the eye of the Colorado Springs Gazette editors, and he was hired as a regular columnist as he continued writing his little books. In 1966 he published a fourth work, The Saga of Dynamite Dan. Now, Porter’s tales earned him notoriety as a popular guest speaker and exhibitor of his own extensive gold ore sample collection. He also wrote several more books. Each effort supported Porter’s hope and theory that someday, the Cripple Creek District would boom once more.

In about 1978, for reasons known only to themselves, Rufus and Martha moved to Riverside, California. A scribbled note from Rufus to Colorado historian, author and Cripple Creek District Museum curator Leland Feitz in January of 1979 noted, “I am writing for Western Publications, Inc. Got a check for $150.00. By the way, I may be back next year. I don’t like Calif.” The letter included an historic photograph from the Cripple Creek District. “I’m going to have a print of it framed and give it to the museum in Cripple Creek,” Feitz wrote back. In response, Rufus typed a cryptic reply on Feitz’s letter on February 16, ending with, “Hope to hear frrom [sic] you soon. Rufus.” Later that day Porter passed away at the age of 81. His body, as well as that of Martha’s a year later, were returned to Colorado for burial in Colorado Springs.

Rufus Porter’s legacy has indeed lived on in the Cripple Creek District. His series of booklets were later published by his late nephew, Forest Porter, and are now highly collectible. And, after years of sitting forgotten, his charming little cabin in Goldfield is now privately owned and lovingly protected and cared for. Most interesting is Rufus Porter’s prediction that some day, the Cripple Creek District would boom once more, has come to fruition. Today, Newmont Mining is the largest gold mining operation in the state, and the City of Cripple Creek has legalized gambling. It’s a far cry from the days when Rufus saw two fellows spitting at a crack in the sidewalk for $20 gold pieces.

Special thank you to the memory of Forest Porter, a nephew of Rufus who corresponded with me regarding his charming uncle.

News of the World – Better Late Than Never

c 2023 by Jan MacKell Collins

Call me late (just never call me late for dinner, yuk yuk), but I just now got around to watching “News of the World,” starring Tom Hanks and a young German actress, Helena Zengel. It is true, this film came out in 2020. The plot centers on an 1800’s Civil War veteran who travels the west, bringing news to those without the benefit of such newfangled inventions of the future like television, radio and the internet. Ironic is that as late as I am giving my two cents about this picture, Hanks’ character, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, reads current and past events from newspapers that are actually months old by the time he reaches his various destinations. That said, I’m forgiving myself for taking so long to watch it.

I liked this film on multiple levels. For one thing, it brings to the forefront the unique fact that in the old west, there really were men who traipsed from town to town, bringing news and editorials to people who lived in remote areas. You don’t think Americans learned all at once that the Civil War was over, do you? They certainly didn’t, and even telegraphed messages – the fastest form of communication at the time which relied on Morse code – could only relay so much information at a time. Author Paulette Giles, whose book of the same name serves as the basis for this movie, was wise to set her story in the post-Civil War years when not everyone got the same message at the same time.

So, on to the story. Captain Kidd is rambling around doing his thing when he comes across an overturned coach. The only passenger appears to be a young girl (Zengel, in her first American role). Nearby, the Black driver of the coach has been lynched. As for the child, she is of German descent with blonde hair, a wide face and piercing sky-blue yes. Her name is Johanna. But the child speaks only Kiowa, owing to the fact that she was taken from her home after her parents were murdered sometime in the past. But her adopted Kiowa parents are dead too. What to do?

In so many westerns, grappling with the idea of a man coming across a child in need (think 1972’s “Jeremiah Johnson,” 1975’s “Against a Crooked Sky,” 1969’s “True Grit” and its 2010 remake, to name a few) has been regarded as a burden. How can you be a badass, or even a normal guy, doing what you need to survive, when you are suddenly encumbered by a child? In this case, Kidd has the wherewithal, and common sense, to see that it is his responsibility to take Johanna to the place she belongs: the home of her long lost kin. Doing so will require riding some rough roads strewn with highwaymen and other outlaws. On the back burner too are Kidd’s memories of his wife, whom he has not seen since he left for the war years before. But duty is duty as far as he is concerned, and he must deliver this little lost girl to the proper destination before moving on.

This is the part where I want to point out the virtues of Tom Hanks’ first role in a real, gritty, period western. We all know Tom, boy do we. He long ago mastered the art of his craft, with a slew of films illustrating the depth of his talent. These days, at the still-young age of 64, the actor himself has become almost a father-like figure in the film industry. But while other reviews have nailed him for acting like typical Tom Hanks in a Tom Hanks film, I didn’t care. I appreciated the aging Captain Kidd’s neutral approach to the task at hand. He reads his newspapers in a way that reminds me of the late Paul Harvey’s news commentaries, with a delivery that makes people automatically trust what he has to say. He is a voice of reason when his listeners vehemently object to the news he reads. In dealing with young Johanna, whose trust must be gained in order for the pair to survive, Kidd knows he must employ as much prudence as he can. If Hanks could not carry this role, I don’t know who could have done a better job.

One of the most poignant parts of the story is seeing how real the struggle is for Kidd’s conscience. He does not call the girl “Cicada,” her Kiowa name, and he is bent on returning her to her blood family, not the Natives she is obviously now more comfortable with. But when Johanna chirps out her sing-song words in Kiowa tongue, and employs survival skills she learned from the tribe, the conflict in Kidd’s face is genuine. And when she instinctively blurts out a German sentence, Kidd obviously feels even more uncomfortable. It is never spoken, but beautifully conveyed, that this man is truly torn between which of the worlds Johanna has lived in is the best one for her. Yet he knows how important it is for him to learn her words and teach her his, because communication is among the most vital survival skills this pair can share.

“News of the World” was filmed in New Mexico. It is a refreshing change to so many movie and shows that have lately fled film-unfriendly America to Canada in favor of more accommodating film commissions. I know New Mexico, and recognized a couple of sets, which gave this movie a comforting, familiar feel. The scenery is, as usual, beautiful. The costumes, sets, firearms, and most everything else used to make the film are authentic. The dialogue is flavorful. And for those who feel the storyline is a bit slow, I’m here to tell you that the wild west was not always wild. It could, on many levels, move at a very unhurried, steady pace that was akin to most lifestyles of the time. In our hurry-hurry world, that’s not really such a bad thing. So sit back, turns the lights low, and be willing to ride along the deliberate, often emotional path this story takes. You won’t be sorry.

Image courtesy IMDB.