Simón Iturri Patiño (1862-1947) was a Bolivian industrialist and entrepreneur. He controlled the richest tin mines in the world.

Simón Iturri Patiño was born in the provincial capital of Cochabamba in June 1862. His background and youth are largely unknown and surrounded by secrecy. He was born into a very humble family of mixed Spanish and Indian blood and in his youth worked in a rural general store and later as a conductor of mule trains in the Bolivian mountains.

About 1900 Patiño received the deed for a small tin mine in return for a modest personal loan he made to a miner. That mine turned out to be fabulously rich, and with profits from it Patiño bought more and more mining property, culminating in his purchase of the giant Catavi mine, largest and richest in the world...