Rawson, Chubut
Rawson ( is the capital of the Argentine province of Chubut, in Patagonia. It has 24,616 inhabitants in 2010, and it is the chief town of the Rawson Department. The city is named after Guillermo Rawson (1821–1890), Argentine Minister of the Interior, who supported the Welsh settlement in Argentina. Rawson is located about south of Buenos Aires, some from Trelew, and it is served by the Almirante Marco Andrés Zar Airport in Trelew. It lies on both sides of the Chubut River. The city has a fishing port, Puerto Rawson, on the Atlantic coast, down the river. History. Rawson  was the first town founded by the Welsh immigrants who sailed on the clipper ""Mimosa"" in 1865. The first bridge over the Chubut in Rawson was built of wood in 1889 by the carpenter and Welsh-language poet Griffith Griffiths (1829–1909), who wrote under the bardic name ' and established the Patagonia Gorsedd of Bards. This bridge was destroyed by a flood ten years later, and was replaced by an iron bridge in 1917. In 2001 a decision was made to rename the iron bridge as ' (poet's bridge) in honor of Griffiths. A plaque was installed at the bridge with  information on Griffiths. Climate. Rawson experiences a borderline cold desert (Köppen "BWk")/cold semi-desert ("BSk") climate with hot summers, cool winters and low precipitation year-round.