Simón Iturri Patiño

Don Simón Iturri Patiño (Santiváñez, Cochabamba Department, Bolivia, 1 June 1862 - Buenos Aires, Argentina, 20 April 1947) was a Bolivian industrialist who was among the world's wealthiest men at the time of his death. With a fortune built from ownership of a majority of the tin industry in Bolivia, Patiño was nicknamed "The Andean Rockefeller". During World War II, Patiño was believed to be one of the five wealthiest men in the world.^[1]

Biography

Patiño's biographers are not in agreement on the details of his early life. Many wrote that he was a cholo, with a mixed Quechua and Spanish heritage, and born to a poor mother,^[2] while his authorized biography holds that he was solely of European ancestry, and the son of a provincial leader. He was actually the illegitimate son of Eugénio Iturri, a Basque, by María Patiño, from Cochabamba. Before entering the mining industry, he either managed a store in Oruro, or spent years in private schools.

Eventually, Patiño started in mining with Compañía Hunanchaca de Bolivia, a silver company, and then with Fricke y Compañía. Patiño was assigned to collections for the store, and in 1894, he agreed to accept a deed of land in compromise for a $250 debt owed by a prospector. The deed turned out to be for the rocky side of a mountain, and Patiño was fired from his job for settling an account in exchange for a worthless piece of property. Legend has it that Patiño was forced to pay back the store from his own funds, and was stuck with his own bad bargain.^[3]

The mountain, located near Llallagua, turned out to be richer in minerals than anyone had imagined. Although the first several years of work yielded little, the turning point came in 1900 when Patiño located a very rich vein of tin, later called "La Salvadora" (The Savior). Over the next 10 years he built up the control of nearby mines and other important mines in Bolivia, including Catavi, Siglo XX, Uncia and Huanuni. By the 1920s he had also bought out Chilean interests in his mining company and went on to buy tin smelters in England and Germany. By the 1940s he controlled the international tin market and was one of the wealthiest men in the world, hence his "title" King of Tin (Rey del Estaño).

He had been living between Europe and Bolivia since around 1912 and after a heart attack in 1924 he moved abroad permanently, first to Paris, then to New York and finally to Buenos Aires where he died. While living in Paris he was appointed Minister to France and represented Bolivia in 1938 at the Evian Conference.

His great wealth made him powerful in Bolivian politics and he was locally both admired and hated.

Previous to a political shift away from his allies in the government Patiño merged the company owning his Bolivian tin property with a British company active in Malaysia.

Patiño died in 1947 and was buried high in the Bolivian mountains of his birth in a giant blue marble tomb.

Family:

Patino's relatives now live in the United States and in Bolivia

Epilogue

The Bolivian Revolution of 1952 nationalised the Patiño Mines and it is claimed that his heir Antenor Patiño had his hand in the military coup that deposed the leader of the revolution, then President Victor Paz Estenssoro, in the 1960s.

See also

• Huanuni tin mine

References

1. ^ Current Biography, 1941, pp. 645-47
2. ^ Crandon-Malamud, Libbet (1993). From the Fat of Our Souls: Social Change, Political Process, and Medical Pluralism in Bolivia. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 48. ISBN 0520084306. 
3. ^ "World Tin King Richest Man of Latin-America", UPI report, April 2, 1931, in The Daily Courier, (Connellsville, Pa.)

External links

• Biographical profile
• Fundación Simon I. Patiño
• "World of Tin". Time Magazine. 1934-05-07. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787861,00.html. Retrieved 2008-08-14. 
• Rachel Emma Silverman. "Rich and Richer: Fifty of the Wealthiest People of the Past 1,000 Years". The Millennium: One Thousand Years of People. The Wall Street Journal. http://interactive.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/mill-1-timeline.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-08. 

Persondata
Name	Patino, Simon Iturri
Alternative names
Short description	Businessperson
Date of birth	1 June 1860
Place of birth	Santiváñez, Cochabamba Department, Bolivia
Date of death	20 April 1947
Place of death	Buenos Aires, Argentina