English: José María Menéndez (1846-1918) was the greatest Patagonian landowner of his time. He was born in Avilés in the province of Asturia in northern Spain and, in 1864 at the age of 18, he emigrated to Cuba. He was there only two years before moving to Buenos Aires where he took a job in a shop that sold nautical items. In 1873, whilst still working in the shop, he married María Behety who was from Montevideo. Shortly after the shop owner sent him to a premises that he owned in Punta Arenas to sort out a problem. The shopkeeper was not paying his rent. As a result Menéndez took over the running of the shop.

In 1877 Menéndez started importing sheep from the Falkland Islands. When he arrived there were 300 sheep in southern Patagonia but, ten years later, there were 40,000! That feat was largely down to Menéndez himself. He purchased land in both Chilean and Argentinian Patagonia. One of his boasts was that he could travel all the way from Tierra del Fuego to Buenos Aires without leaving his land.

More info to come.

Information from Eduardo Menéndez Hume, Wikipedia and Patagonia, a forgotten land by Carlos Brebbia.