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The Plaza Muñoz Gamero is today an urban complex of exceptional heritage value, which embodies the history of the hard-working inhabitants of Magallanes.



The square owes its name to the governor Benjamín Muñoz Gamero, who met tragic death in the bloody mutiny promoted by Lieutenant Miguel José Cambiazo in the troubled year of 1851. Crossed by diagonal paths and shaded by magnificent birch and cypress trees, it has a splendid bronze monument, dedicated to Hernando de Magallanes, which was donated by the wealthy José Menéndez, on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the discovery of the strait. On the south side of the square is the elegant iron kiosk that was installed as part of the celebration of the centenary of Independence in 1910.



The declaration decree includes both the Plaza and all the buildings that surround it. On the west side is the Main Church, which currently has the rank of a Cathedral, and which was inaugurated and blessed in 1901. At the other end of the block is the building, with three floors in brick masonry, which since the end of the century XIX housed the government of the colony; between this construction and the church the governor's house was later erected.





It is in the heart of the city, Punta Arenas.



Punta Arenas is located 3,090 km from Santiago de Chile and 2,286 km from Puerto Montt. You can get:



By plane

There are daily frequencies from the Santiago de Chile airport in 3 and a half hours of flight, and from Puerto Montt that you should consult.



By car

To get there by car, you must continue from Santiago de Chile on Route 5 South to Osorno where you must cross the Cardenal Samoré Border Crossing to the Argentine Republic, which will take you to the Patagonian sector. Take the Chilean road back through Puerto Natales.



Boat

There are frequencies from Puerto Montt that you can consult.



On the north side is the beautiful Sara Braun Palace, built in 1895 by the widow of the magnate José Nogueira to house her residence. With a French style and generous decoration, the building is deeply evocative and representative of the history of the city. In the other half of the block, the pioneer José Menéndez built his residence and the headquarters of his commercial company in the 1910s, the work of French architects, like that of his neighbor. In the opposite block, the Braun and Blanchard firm had built its headquarters a few years before, according to the same aesthetic canons as the previous ones. In the south-west corner, the building that is currently the headquarters of ENAP stands; Built in the 1950s by Corfo, it is the first tall building in the city (8 floors), and it is not dissonant with the whole. Between both buildings is the one that today houses the Municipality, built for housing by the wealthy rancher José Montes. On the south side of the square, the buildings built at the beginning of the century now house banking institutions; in this same block is the Hotel Cabo de Hornos, erected by order of the Tierra del Fuego Cattle Society in the 1960s.

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