William Worrall Mayo - Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic

In 1892, William Worrall Mayo asked Dr. Augustus Stinchfield to join his practice as a full partner. Once Stinchfield accepted the offer, W. W. Mayo promptly retired at age 73. As the practice grew, Drs. Christopher Graham, E. Starr Judd, Henry Stanley Plummer, Melvin Millet, and Donald Balfour were also invited to join it as partners. In 1919, the partners of the private practice created the Mayo Properties Association and established the Mayo Clinic as a not-for-profit entity.

In 1910, W. W. Mayo became interested in the extraction and distillation of alcohol from animal and vegetable wastes, and one day suffered a serious injury when the extraction mechanism crushed his arm and hand. That injury necessitated an amputation and produced complications which resulted in his death in March 1911, shortly before Mayo's 92nd birthday. His wife died in 1915. They are buried next to each other at Oakwood Cemetery in Rochester.

The family's home in Le Sueur was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. Carson Nesbit Cosgrove and his family later lived in the home. Cosgrove went on to help create the Minnesota Valley Canning Company, later named Green Giant.

W. W. Mayo is honored together with Charles Menninger and their sons with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on March 6.