San Martín del Tesorillo

San Martín del Tesorillo is a local autonomous entity established as such on April 19, 1999. It is located in the municipality of Jimena de la Frontera, in the Campo de Gibraltar region, in Andalusia.

22 kilometers southeast of the city of Jimena, next to the Guadiaro River, San Martín del Tesorillo was declared an agricultural colony in 1879, beginning its consolidation as a population center from the 1930s, after its division into parcels and the arrival of settlers. . The recognition of municipal autonomy and its jurisdictional term, of 4,857 hectares, was approved by Decree of the Junta de Andalucía on April 24, 1999. Its council has a series of its own powers and others delegated by the Jimena council and rights over the income and debts generated in its jurisdictional term.

The first agricultural colony was founded by Martín Larios y Larios, son of Martín Larios Herreros, first Marquis of Larios,2 and president of the Guadiaro Industrial and Agricultural Society. This society, together with the Larios de Gibraltar Society, created several agricultural colonies in the Campo de Gibraltar area, including San Martín del Tesorillo, which was dedicated to growing and processing wheat; San Pablo de Buceite, dedicated to the cultivation and transformation of olive oil; and San Luis de Sabinillas, with sugar production.3 These foundations came about after buying large estates from the house of Medina-Sidonia in 1869. In the 1930s, a Mallorcan landowner, Juan March, bought the estates from the Larios family and divided them into plots, putting them up for sale to farmers from other areas of Andalusia and Valencia. The presence of settlers from Jimena and other municipalities in Campo de Gibraltar was scarce, according to what it seems, due to the misgivings that this landowner, with a smuggling past, had in the region.