Merlo is the head town of the eponymous partido of Merlo and seat of the municipal government, located in the

Greater Buenos Aires Greater Buenos Aires ( es, Gran Buenos Aires, GBA), also known as the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area ( es, Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, AMBA), refers to the urban agglomeration comprising the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the adjac ...

urban area of

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires (), officially the Buenos Aires Province (''Provincia de Buenos Aires'' ), is the largest and most populous Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of th ...

, Argentina. The city was founded by Francisco de Merlo in 1755 and rebuilt by Juan Dillon in 1859. Merlo is divided in two distinctive regions: ''Merlo Centro'', a

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Commo ...

district clustered around the train station; and the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residenti ...

s, most of them along the

Reconquista River The Reconquista River (Spanish, Río Reconquista) is a small river in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Together with the Riachuelo, it is one of the most contaminated watercourses in the country. The Reconquista is part of the Río de la ...

. The administrative and commercial center is around the main avenue, ''Avenida del Libertador General San Martín''. This tree-covered avenue stretches seven blocks from the railway station to the historic district and has few buildings reaching over two storeys in height. Merlo is bordered by

Moreno Moreno may refer to: Places Argentina *Moreno (Buenos Aires Metro), a station on Line C of the Buenos Aires Metro *Moreno, Buenos Aires, a city in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina *Moreno Department, a depatnent of Santiago del Estero Province, A ...

and

Paso del Rey Paso del Rey is a city located 35.5 km west of Buenos Aires, in Moreno, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Paso del Rey (''King's Ford'') takes its name from the estancia (ranch) owned by Senator Amancio Jacinto Alcorta: ''Estancia Paso del ...

—both cities in

Moreno Partido Moreno Partido is a Partidos of Buenos Aires, partido of the Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, within the Gran Buenos Aires urban agglomeration. It has an area of and a population of 462,242 (). It is named after the Argentine politician Mariano ...

—and the

(northwest),

San Antonio de Padua San Antonio de Padua, or plainly Padua, is a city in the Greater Buenos Aires, in Argentina. It is located in Merlo Partido. The city has an area of and a population of around 38,000. The name commemorates the village founded by Francisco de Mer ...

(north), Libertad and Parque San Martín (east) and Mariano Acosta (south).

History

The origin of Merlo goes back to the town of Villa San Antonio del Camino, a hamlet clustered around a ranch-house belonged to the Spanish landlord Francisco de Merlo and which had been founded as a result of the recurrent

Araucanian The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sh ...

raids throughout the 18th century.

Francisco de Merlo

Francisco Javier de Merlo y Barbosa was born in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, on August 11, 1693 and died in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

on April 4, 1758. Merlo arrives to Buenos Aires in the early 18th century and made a fortune and became part of the Buenos Aires upper class; Merlo served as notary public in the municipal government or cabildo of Buenos Aires. He also was a

laity In religious organizations, the laity () consists of all members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious orders, e.g. a nun or a lay brother. In both religious and wider secular usage, a layperson ...

member of the Third Order of Our Lady of Mercy. He married Francisca del Toro in 1713 and they had eleven children. After widowed he married María Teresa Gamiz de las Cuevas in 1748, with whom he had a son. In 1729, the notary public Francisco Sánchez Botija dies in Buenos Aires and his

last will A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property ( estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person (executor) is to manage the property until its final distributio ...

was his fortune were gave to his compatriot, friend and

compadre The compadre (, , , literally "co-father" or "co-parent") relationship between the parents and godparents of a child is an important bond that originates when a child is baptised in Iberian, Latin American, Filipino Christian and Indian Christian ...

Francisco de Merlo with the condition that a sanctuary were built to his memory and fifty masses were celebrated every year for the absolution of his soul. With that fortune Merlo bought many

haciendas An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or ''finca''), similar to a Roman ''latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), ...

in the western countryside and by the middle of the 18th century he established a large state between the upper

Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...

and upper Matanza rivers, seven leagues (35 km.) from Buenos Aires. Merlo built his ranch-house on high ground overlooking the nearby '' Camino Real del Oeste'', a road that linked Buenos Aires with

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of t ...

, the capital of the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Virreinato del Perú, links=no) was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed from ...

. At its side Merlo erected a private oratory, fulfilling the last will of his compadre and it was consecrated to saint

Anthony of Padua Anthony of Padua ( it, Antonio di Padova) or Anthony of Lisbon ( pt, António/Antônio de Lisboa; born Fernando Martins de Bulhões; 15 August 1195 – 13 June 1231) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese Catholic Church, Catholic priesthood (Cath ...

and the

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth w ...

. For many years the oratory served as parish church of the huge and almost unpopulated

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

of La Matanza. He also established one of the first schools outside Buenos Aires in where the locals could learn to read and write; the school was entrusted to the

mercedarian The Royal, Celestial and Military Order of Our Lady of Mercy and the Redemption of the Captives ( la, Ordo Beatae Mariae de Mercede Redemptionis Captivorum, abbreviated O. de M.), also known as the Mercedarians, is a Catholic mendicant order est ...

friars.

San Antonio del Camino

In 1742, Francisco de Merlo petitioned king

Philip V of Spain Philip V ( es, Felipe; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724, and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign of 45 years is the longest in the history of the Spanish mon ...

authorization to found a village on his estates and it was granted in 1755. On August 28, 1755, Francisco de Merlo founds the town of Villa San Antonio del Camino, offering free land to anyone willing to settle in the new town. Villa San Antonio del Camino was named after the before mentioned Portuguese saint and it started with 111 inhabitants grouped in 24 families. Merlo died on April 4, 1758 and the land was divided between his heirs and sold to different private investors. The town remained within the bounds of the estancia donated by Merlo to the Mercedarian Order. In 1776 the mercedarian friars build a

hospice Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by ...

in order to take care of the poorer people of the rural area. The town was isolated from the main transportation and communication routes when the nearby road Camino de los Gaona bypassed Merlo three kilometers north after the landlord Juan Marquez built a wooden bridge in his estates over the Reconquista River in 1773. Few years later the parish-seat was moved to the neighboring town of Morón which was already the district seat of the homonymous Partido of Morón, created in 1784. By 1810, Merlo was an insignificant hamlet, forgotten in middle of the

Pampas The Pampas (from the qu, pampa, meaning "plain") are fertile South American low grasslands that cover more than and include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Córdoba; all of Uruguay; and Brazi ...

and where the

criollos In Hispanic America, criollo () is a term used originally to describe people of Spanish descent born in the colonies. In different Latin American countries the word has come to have different meanings, sometimes referring to the local-born majo ...

illegally traded with the Indians.

The railway

In 1857 the Argentine railway company ''Camino de Hierro de Buenos Aires al Oeste'' opens the first steam locomotive public railway in Argentina and few years later the company was planning to extend the line westward to

making land speculation a highly profitable activity. In order to reach Merlo the line would pass through the

estancia An estancia is a large, private plot of land used for farming or raising cattle or sheep. Estancias in the southern South American grasslands, the ''pampas'', have historically been estates used to raise livestock, such as cattle or sheep. In Pu ...

belonged to Manuela Calderón de Pearson and which was managed by her son Juan Dillon, who saw the opportunity to make huge profits by selling out parts of the family's estate . In 1859 Juan Dillon commissioned the famous architect and engineer

Pedro Benoit Pedro Benoit (February 18, 1836 – April 4, 1897) was an Argentine architect, engineer, and urbanist best known for designing the layout of the city of La Plata. Life and times Pedro Benoit was born in Buenos Aires in 1836 to María Josefa ...

to design the layout of the new town, organizing it on a rectangular grid of streets and blocks. The town was enlarged and complemented by Benoit's designs for a town hall, avenue, train station, school and the Church of Our Lady of Mercy. The train station was opened on August 11, 1859.

Merlo in the second half of the 20th century

In the second half of the 20th century, Merlo experienced an important influx of immigrants from the provinces and the old town sprawled over the countryside and the farms were replaced by housing for residents with a lower range of incomes.

Gallery

Image:Merlo_05.JPG, Sullivan House, a residential house dating from the 19th century Image:Merlo_06.JPG, Landaburu House, a historic residence Image:Merlo_07.JPG, Merlo Municipal Palace File:Merlo_03.JPG, The Church of Our Lady of Mercy (Benoit) Image:Merlo_08.JPG,

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (; born Domingo Faustino Fidel Valentín Sarmiento y Albarracín; 15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888) was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the second President of Argentina. His writing s ...

school (Benoit)

Neighbourhoods

Merlo Centro

Merlo Centro is a middle class district clustered around the train station and comprehends the 1859 Juan Dillon's town. The administrative and commercial center is around the main avenue, ''Avenida del Libertador General San Martín''. This tree-covered avenue stretches seven blocks from the railway station to the historic district and has few buildings reaching over two storeys in height.

Historic buildings

Nothing remains from Francisco de Merlo's town and hospice. The oldest building still standing in Merlo is the railway station, opened in 1859 in land donated by Juan Dillon's mother, Manuela Calderón. The Church of Nuestra Señora de la Merced (Our Lady of Mercy) was consecrated in 1864 and it was built in the same spot where the old Merlo's chapel stood. The building was also designed by Pedro Benoit —prominent neighbor of Merlo and recognized member of the Argentine

freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

— and built by the Spanish master builder Antonio Ayerbe. The first parish priest was the Irish catholic priest Patrick Joseph Dillon, Juan Dillon's first cousin. He was appointed as chaplain for the Irish community in Merlo and years later he was elected senator in the legislature of Buenos Aires and founder of the newspaper The Southern Cross, which continues in print to this day.

Barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residenti ...
s

* Merlo Norte * Pompeya * Argentino * Lago del Bosque * Las Violetas * Amandi * Reconquista * Loma Florida * San Eduardo * Arco Iris * Albatros * Parque El Sol * El Mirador * 2da loma grande

Notable people

* Gabriela Celeste Alaniz (born 1996) - world champion female boxer

External links

{{Authority control Cities in Argentina Populated places in Buenos Aires Province Populated places established in 1755 1750s establishments in the Viceroyalty of Peru 1755 establishments in South America