Alferd E. Packer (1842–1909), also “Alfred,” was a prospector who became famous after confessing to eating his dead comrades while trapped in the San Juan Mountains in February 1874. With the group starving and disoriented, it appears likely that Packer…

The Empire Chief Mine and Mill site is an abandoned nineteenth-century metal mining complex in Hinsdale County, located several miles west of Lake City on the southern slope of Sheep Mountain (83 Sunny Ave, Empire, CO 80438). The mine was established in…

Established in 1874, Hinsdale County is a mountainous, sparsely populated county of 1,123 square miles in southwest Colorado. The county was named for George A. Hinsdale, a prominent politician and newspaperman in nineteenth-century Colorado. The county…

At an elevation of 8,661 feet in the heart of the San Juan Mountains, the historic mining town of Lake City is the only incorporated town in Hinsdale County. Named for nearby Lake San Cristobal, the town was founded in 1874 in a broad valley along the…