By observing the buildings surrounding the Muñoz Gamero square, you will have a perfect tour of the beginnings of the urbanization of the city in the early twentieth century and the origins of the history of our region. It was during this period that several European families arrived to conquer these lands, attracted by the commercial development boom that the Strait of Magellan meant as a connection point between Europe and the East.
Following the clockwise direction, start your visit at our Cathedral, which was inaugurated in 1901 and still preserves its original construction and characteristics. Then you will find the current Administration of the region, which in its beginnings represented the house of the first government of the city.
Crossing the street you will find the Sara Braun Palace, current meeting place of the Punta Arenas Union Club. On your right you will find the José Menéndez Palace, currently the Military Club. The block ends with the commercial house of the Menéndez Behety Society where maritime supplies were sold for the navigators of the Strait of Magellan, today Work Café of the Santander Bank.
Continuing your tour around the square, you will find our Cabo de Hornos Hotel, the result of the commercial boom in the area and built by order of the Tierra del Fuego Livestock Society, which came to have 4 million animals from which it exported wool and meat to the whole world. Next to it is the Blanchard Palace, where the Chilean Antarctic Institute currently operates, and finally the former Bank of London, today a branch of Banco Santander.
Finally, we finish the tour in the fourth quadrant where we are confronted with three emblematic buildings: the offices of the Braun, Blanchard and Menendez Society, the first inter-oceanic company in the country and where today the Banco Estado operates; the Montes Palace, home of the wealthy cattle rancher Don José Montes, today the Municipality of Punta Arenas; and the building of the Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (National Petroleum Company), the first high-rise building constructed in the city in 1948.