Argus

Argus buildings:

Argus Building,
535 West William Street
now an office building,
home of the Argus Museum

Characteristic house corner
of a former Argus building that
became part of the University

The entrance of
that building

The entrance of another Argus building

C3 and C3 Matchmatic

Argus Inc. was a camera maker based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Before 1939 it was International Research Corporation, a department of International Radio Corporation, Ann Arbor. It was the American company that popularized the modern cartridged 35mm film in the U.S., especially by its characteristically brick-shaped rangefinder cameras. The first camera of Argus, the Argus A, resulted from a patent that the company received in 1936. Before that time the company had produced radios, among them some bakelite models.

Argus became a great name in the Ann Arbor's economy. Several buildings of its heydays are still known as Argus building. One of these pearls of the city's brick architecture has become a modern office building now, with a public area where a permanent exhibition of Argus cameras is shown, the Argus Museum.

Some Argus products were OEM products made by other makers.