Elementos de tensión en la planificación del desarrollo hidroeléctrico en Norpatagonia 1911-1961

Abstract

The argues about North Patagonian development date back to the incorporation of these territories to National State, through the military occupation started at the end of XIX Century. From this, the national state set out the incorporation of the resources available in the region as one of the axis of national development, without a clear clue about the realization of the idea. The Patagonian resources at the service of Nation is a repeating image in the history of the region, since the valleys production, the petroleum, the mining, the sheep breading, or the harnessing of the power of its rivers, the Patagonia has been described privileging natural resources over the human ones. In this article we show haw this supposes are updated around the debate about the building of hydroelectric centrals in North Patagonian, from the background, in Bailey Willis´s project, to the plan that became real, designed in the frame of the “desarrollismo” at ‘60s years.