The town was founded on 28 July 1865, when 150
Welsh immigrants arriving aboard the
clipper Mimosa named the natural port
Porth Madryn in honour of
Sir Love Jones-Parry, whose estate in
Wales was called Madryn after the Welsh name for
Saint Materiana. Conditions were difficult and the settlers had to dig irrigation ditches for their first crops. The settlement grew as a result of the building of the
Central Chubut Railway by Welsh, Spanish, and Italian immigrants. This line, opened in 1889, linked the town to
Trelew via the lower
Chubut River valley. Puerto Madryn was the port to which Argentine prisoners of war captured in the
Falklands Islands during the
1982 war were repatriated on the vessels
SS Canberra,
MV St Edmund and
MV Norland, which sailed from
Port Stanley on 18 June 1982. == Twin towns ==