Eduardo Madero

Eduardo Madero (1823 — 1894) was an Argentine merchant, banker and developer.

Eduardo Madero was born in Buenos Aires, in 1823, to a family of farmers. A nephew of publisher Florencio Varela, his uncle's enmity with the Governor of Buenos Aires Province, Juan Manuel de Rosas, led Madero to relocate to Montevideo, in neighboring Uruguay. Madero established an import-export business and following Rosas' 1852 overthrow, he returned - by then a prosperous merchant. Madero was later elected to local office, as well as to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies as a supporter of the Buenos Aires-centric Autonomist Party. He served as President of the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires and, in 1874, the .

Madero twice proposed the construction of a port facing the Plaza de Mayo, in 1861 and 1869; but the proposals, the second of which obtained the Interior Ministry's endorsement, were ultimately passed over for a design by local engineer Luis Huergo, whose plans called for a dock on the mouth of the Riachuelo (a river flowing along the city's industrial southside). Following the construction of the Port of La Boca, in the 1870s, a sudden economic and population boom led the new President of Argentina, Julio Roca, to commission the development in 1881 of a new, much larger port. The Director of Riachuelo Works, Luis Huergo, presented plans of his own design for a port of staggered docks, rather like the bittings on a key. The seasoned Madero, however, treveled to London, where he obtained both the services of renowned British engineer Sir John Hawkshaw and financing for the project from Barings Bank (the chief underwriter of Argentine bonds and investment, at the time).

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