Simón Patiño built a tin fortune from one Bolivian vein, and five years after his death the revolution took his mines

Simón Iturri Patiño was born in Santiváñez, Cochabamba, on 1 June 1860. Wikipedia repeats a story that in 1894 he took a mining claim in payment of a $250 debt^†. In 1895 he joined a partnership in the La Salvadora mine at Llallagua, and in 1900 it struck a rich tin vein. He took control of Catavi, Siglo XX, Uncía and Huanuni and bought smelters in England and Germany. By 1920 his company produced about 41 percent of the world's tin. In 1924 he bought out his Chilean partners and registered Patiño Mines and Enterprises Consolidated in Delaware. After a heart attack he lived abroad, in Paris and New York. His son Antenor said in 1968 that the fortune had exceeded $3 billion. Patiño died in Buenos Aires on 20 April 1947, aged 86, and was buried in Cochabamba. On 31 October 1952 President Víctor Paz Estenssoro signed the decree nationalising the Patiño, Hochschild and Aramayo mines. It accepted compensation in principle for physical property but excluded what lay underground. The United States asked compensation only for the American owners of the Delaware company. In June 1953 the Patiño group signed an agreement with the state mining corporation, COMIBOL, on retained payments. The mines remain with COMIBOL.