Ira Haynes La Fetra (1851–1917), was a Methodist missionary to South America, and is commonly known as "builder of the Chile Mission".

The following year La Fetra began ministering in Santiago, where he reorganized the English-language Union Church and founded a school there in 1880.

In Santiago La Fetra met and married Adelaide Whitefield (La Fetra), and together they founded the Santiago College, considered one of the leading educational schools in Chile.

In 1880 he was elected as the first president of the conference of missionaries set up to administer the self-supporting missions that had been established by Taylor on the West Coast of South America.

It was a comprehensive work about the government, politics, religion industry and geography and the people of Chili[5] La Fetra died on December 16, 1917 at age 66, in Los Angeles, California.