Lizandro A. Proaño
(Biography)
Peruvian mining is undoubtedly due to the discovery of its main deposits at IDS national miners, who, through their drive and entrepreneurial spirit, faced with risks and sacrifices, discovered and worked the Peruvian mines, from prehistory and incarnation, offering their effort And his blood during the Colony; And forging, in the Republic, the essential sources of our economy. Among these daring miners, Don Lizandro Antonio Proaño soto, born in Cerro de Pasco on May 10, 1866, son of Don Ricardo Proaño and Dona Petronila Soto, was a prominent figure in our time, and his grandfathers were Miguel Proaño And Mrs. Maria del Pilar Quintana, closely linked to the mining activity.
Hence, as written in a biographical note recently published, "the geographical context and the activity of their ancestors would determine that vocation to which we allude and that in his bed of patient, close to his death, led him to declare the Sole profession of his life: miner "
From the time he began mining, he was one of the main combatants in the struggle to preserve mining in the hands of Peruvians, through his operations in Morococha and in the Viso-Aruri district, as well as in heavy court battles, for To face the actions of penetration of the foreign capital that appears in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, determining an accelerated process of denationalization of mining in Peru, against which I never cease to fight.
According to the Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Peruvians, published by Juan Pedro Paz Soldán and Valle Riestra in 1917, Lizandro Proaño studied at the Ortecho School in Tarma and at the San José School, devoting himself from a very young age to mining works, Experience "as much knowledge in this field as the best mine engineer."
In 1894 he discovered with his brother-in-law Octavio Valentine, a high-grade copper ore in Morococha, eventually developing a medium-sized mining trade in that area.
It should be noted that in the last two decades of the last century the number of entrepreneurs working independent mines on a significant scale, including Fernandini Proaño, Arias, Mujica, Marcionelli, but depending on the processing of the La Cast iron ore Oroya, with foreign capital.
It is, therefore, from the discoveries of Proaño in Morococha, in 1894, that the exploration and exploitation of this zone begins, that has been one of the pillars of national mining and one of the most important mining districts of the world. Referring to Proaño, Paz Soldán, in his Dictionary highlights "that discovered and exploited the first and main copper mines of rich mineral Morococha," being among those "most of the famous mine Ombla" and others included in the Alapainpa Negotiation .
Paz Soldán adds that Proano owns "most of the Sociedad Minera Austria Duvaz, whose deep hole is the real key to the Morococha mining seat and the one to drain this valuable mining area, passing 528 meters under level
of the surface and under IDS mineralized hills San Francisco and Santa Cruz ".
Proaño was also the owner of the coal-fired mines at the mining site of Huari, Yauli. Undoubtedly, in his thinking, the objective of setting up a metallurgical center of its own, a goal materialized in the Tamboraque Foundry, is in its thinking.
Between 1900 and 1910, a representative of Jones B. Haggen, an American millionaire, perfected purchase contracts for approximately half a million pounds sterling, acquiring 80% of the mineralized area of Cerro de Pasco, as well as a significant number of Concessions in Morococha, with an investment close to four hundred thousand pounds sterling, laying the foundations of what would later be Cerro de Pasco Corporation.
The resistance to denationalization opposed by Proaño led him to face directly the Cerro de Pasco Corporation in a conflict for the possession of the shares of the Industrial Mineral Company Yauli and the Campania Minera Copaicocha, in which he was partner with Valentine Stuart, Tealdo and Pehooz, who sold their shares leaving Proaño in a retail position and outside the administration, for which he was forced to sell.
After the above-mentioned penetration operations, only Peruvian miners remained in that area, Eulogio Fernandini in Cerro de Pasco and Lizandro Proaño in Morococha, with concessions in their name and to the mining companies Austria Duvaz, Alapampa and La Mar.
The strong spirit of Proaño is evident in that opportunity. The proceeds from the sale of shares that he had to make when he was abandoned by his partners, applies him to vigorously develop the Viso-Aruri mining district and to install a Mineral Foundry Plant
in Tamboraque. The author Thorp E. Bertram, in his book "Entry of the Hill of Pasco Mining Co. to Peru", published in Oxford in 1974, acknowledges that Proano "was the only mining owner who actively opposed the expansion of foreign control" .
Between 1912 and 1918 maintains a prolonged legal litigation with the Hill of Pasco that ends with the recognition of the rights sustained by Proano, with respect to the majority of shares of the AJapampa Mining Company.
His temper of visionary and indefatigable fighter is emphasized at all times. Since 1906 its Tamboraque Metallurgical Facility, which had hydroelectric, smelting, camps and related facilities, had been functioning as the center of a vast complex of mining concessions in active production, the ruggedness of the region's topography led it to conceive a project for the Construction of a 17-kilometer cableway, whose first stage between Coricancha and Tamboraque meant considerable savings of time and cost in transporting the ore between the site and the plant.
The thought of Lizandro Proaño is expressed in a statement made years before his death: "Before the contemplation that we are once again offered the treasures that the land of the country contains, there is reason for men who only encrypt the National happiness in the fruitful tasks of work and peace, feel full of complacency for the brilliant future that is reserved for Peru, with the exploitation of its natural wealth, if for this the State powers come with the measures of encouragement And protection that the national mining industry has been demanding. "
His admirable career in the mining sector is complemented by the importance of his civic activity, which was very varied and intense, fulfilling it with the same dedication both in communal, national and political functions. For more than six years he was mayor of the district of Ancón, sacrificing his performance for the great efforts he made to endow the spa with electric lighting and drainage, contributing to its beautification with the construction of the main jetty and the urbanization of the grounds of Playa Hermosa , Prolonging its efforts of district impulse with initiatives that present in the Chamber of Deputies, that later integrates like representative by the province of Yauli.
In 1914, he was a member of the council of the Provincial Council of Lima.
His presence in the public life of the country also kept him permanently linked to mining. He participated in several competitions of the specialty, emphasizing in particular his brilliant intervention in the Congress of Mining celebrated in Lima in the year 1917.
I work indesmably in a project to organize the Mining Bank that the Government later made a reality; And others for the establishment of copper, lead and zinc mineral refineries, thus anticipating programs that are now a reality.
He married the distinguished lady Dona Enriqueta Valentini. Leaving four children to his death, on June 24, 1945.
Their descendants have preserved their mining properties and have developed and continued them, working them successfully.