What is the Myron Stratton Home? The money to start the home came from the estate of Winfield Scott Stratton. He had come to this area, like many, to find clean air because of consumption, now known as tuberculosis, commonly called TB. He worked as a carpenter in Colorado Springs and tried several times to find gold in the nearby mountains. When Cripple Creek’s gold was discovered, he was right there.

Stratton dug test holes all over the Cripple Creek area, but one of his best discoveries was over near the town of Victor. A claim he named Independence proved to be quite rich. He later sold the claim, by then a big mine, for several million dollars. From this he was well established in Cripple Creek history.

He used his money for many interesting ideas. He built himself a nice home in Colorado Springs and bought quite a bit of the downtown property. He invested heavily in the area, including the Short Line Railroad, which used what is now Gold Camp Road. He even looked seriously at the Colorado Springs and Interurban street railway and a couple smaller companies, which were having problems. He, and a couple associates, combined the smaller lines into a smooth operation, including larger, new cars which improved it tremendously. He also bought a lot of open land south of town.

He had an idea of developing a place where some of the people he had known could retire, plus a place to help children who were from bad situations. The early residents included many people from Cripple Creek who had not found their fortunes in the mines. His childhood was not ideal, and that helped motivate him. When the TB caught up with him, he left almost his entire estate to develop this home. It was named for his father, Myron Stratton. His background helped fuel huge battles over his estate, but in the end the dream became a reality.

The Stratton Home property is only a shadow of what it was fifty to eighty years ago, but it is still largely supported by the property they own in downtown Colorado Springs.