SETTLED
1875
ELEVATION
10,404 Feet
ABANDONED
1882
“In a private room he showed me the first specimens of gold...immediately I made the proof and found that it was gold.”
Much confusion surrounds Argentum and four other small mining camps that existed in the same general area at around the same time.
The camps of Argentum, Burrows Park, Whitecross, Tellurium, and Sterling were all located in a mountain park called Burrows Park, which itself made up the Burrows Park Mining District. The trouble is that no one seems to know precisely where one town starts and another town ends.
Argentum seems to have been located approximately three quarters of a mile southeast of Burrows Park and was the first in a string of five camps along Hinsdale County Road 30 headed toward Animas Forks. There has been speculation that suggests that Argentum and Burrows Park may have been different names for the same place. It's also feasible that they were distinct places, but that Burrows Park (the larger of the two) absorbed Argentum.
With less than a mile between the two sites, either of these possibilities is reasonable. But so is the argument that they were two completely separate towns and stayed that way.
A Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sign at the site of what is likely Argentum reads:
"BURROWS PARK: These two structures were part of the town of Argentum located in the Burrows Park Mining District. The smaller cabin was built in the 1870s and probably served as the town's post office operated by James Sloan. The larger cabin was probably constructed in the 1890s, its function is presently unknown. Could it have been the stage stop and hotel known to have been in this area?"
Copper, silver, and iron were all found here in mines with names like the Bonhomme, the Cracker Jack, the Tabasco, and the Champion.
The intriguing mystery of the camps of the Burrows Park Mining District may never be solved.