Doña Argenta – El Palacete – Cuevas de Almanzora

Back in 1838, one of the richest silver mines in Europe was discovered in the Almagrera mountain range in Cuevas del Almanzora. And it wasn’t the only one. In the following years several more were discovered.
All this splendour lasted about fifty years, until 1889.

It seemed that destiny gave a reprieve to the final days of the Spanish empire, which was losing those precious possessions of America that dared to become independent. Spain did not know how to integrate its archaic ancient regime mentality with the nascent liberalism inspired by the French and industrial revolution.
The future was uncertain for everyone, but the silver of that remote place where its inhabitants lived in holes dug in the foothills of its mountains, strengthened for a few more years the tumbles that the progress of Spain gave.

Doña Argenta was the daughter of those new fortunes from Cuevas del Almanzora who saw the value of her shares multiply exponentially and didn’t even know what to do with the money.

They could not leave the place and neglect their precious silver and lead mines, the source of their vanities, much as they wanted to strut through the great cities with ostentation and extravagance. So they chose to bring the cities to their people.

They built mansions, gardens, enormous houses that occupied entire blocks, they brought the theatre, the casino, a social club, and a collegiate church that did not become a cathedral for lack of a bishop.

Doña Argenta learned as a child to feel the centre of the world. She was not short of servants or whims.

Why study, cultivate or read if she already had everything?

A good husband was what she needed.

And she would always miss him. She married one of those noblemen who has a bit of a last name and nothing in his pocket, who could hardly stand the retired life of that town, and instead he went to make his fortune in the Americas, or rather he escaped with the fortune he caught wherever he went. No one could claim him.