Merlo Partido

In the early 17th century the present-day partido was part of the Pago (from the Latin pagus, country district) of Las Conchas; the territory was traversed by the Reconquista River, known in those days as Río de las Conchas (literally River of Shells) from where the region took its name. The region was largely inhabited by the taluhet people, part of the het nation, a hunter-gatherer society better known by the exonym querandi.

In 1636 the territory of today's Merlo was divided into a few haciendas, given as land grants by Governor Pedro Esteban Dávila to a few and influential Buenos Aires neighbors.

Inside the haciendas the main economical activities were the agriculture and cattle-raising. The fertile land —drained by Las Conchas/Reconquista River— was covered with wheat fields and orchards. The bigger hacienda was granted to the Company of Jesus and the resulting production provided the Jesuits the financial resources to maintain the schools they had in Buenos Aires.

The Jesuit priests Thomas Falkner[2] and Florian Paucke[3] visited the region in the mid 18th century and described the area plenty of herds of feral cattle and horses roaming free on the plains and numerous packs of dogs that feed on them and sometimes attacked the unwarned and helpless travelers.

La vuelta del malón (The return of the raiders) by Ángel Della Valle (1892), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.

By the 18th century the Araucanian people were moving from the lap of the Andes Mountains to the Pampas, attracted by the numerous cattle and horses herds. The Araucanians looted and sacked the Spanish settlements around Buenos Aires, performing unexpected horse mounted attacks known in the Southern Cone as malones (s. malón, from Mapudungun malocán: “to make war”).

By those days the Spanish businessman Francisco de Merlo bought many lands in the region, establishing a big estancia.

The settlers scattered throughout the region took refuge around the fortified Merlo's ranch-house, starting a little hamlet in his properties. It made Merlo petitioned King Philip V of Spain authorization to found a town in his states. On October 28, 1755 Francisco de Merlo founds the town of Villa San Antonio del Camino.

After Merlo's death the town became into an out-back town, isolated from the main commercial routes, remaining within the boundaries of the estancia belonged to the Mercedarian Order, expropriated in 1821 by the State of Buenos Aires and bought in 1852 by the English businessman Thomas Gibson Pearson. After his death the estancia was managed by his stepson Juan Dillon, key figure in the history of Merlo.

Juan Dillon, Merlo's first Mayor.

Juan Dillon y Calderón[4] was born in Buenos Aires in 1819 and died in 1887. He was son of John Dillon, an Irish immigrant and his second wife, Manuela Calderón. Juan Dillon was a businessman, absentee landlord and public official, member of the prosperous Irish community in Buenos Aires. He married Josefa Ballesteros (b. 1824) and they had eight children. He was a prominent member of Adolfo Alsina's Autonomist Party.

John Dillon, left Ireland and emigrated to Spain. In 1807 he settled in the River Plate as a merchant and owner of a meat-curing plant. He loaned his flotilla of boats to Argentina in the war for independence with Spain. He also started the first brewery in the country. John Dillon dies in 1826 and Manuela Calderón married Thomas Gibson Pearson.

After Rosas’ fall in 1852, Juan Dillon was appointed Juez de Paz (Justice of Peace) in Morón (1855–1856) and military commander for the region. He also was elected Presidente de Municipalidad (Municipal President or Mayor) of the same district (1857; 1864–1865).

By those days Dillon took charge of his family's estate in Merlo, rebuilt the town and was appointed Juez de Paz of the newly created Partido of Merlo.

After his public life in Merlo, President Avellaneda appointed Dillon as Chief Commissioner of Immigration in 1875. During his administration Argentina experienced the first massive European immigration to the country and Dillon received the first Welsh immigrants, Volga Germans and Italians from Friuli. After that, Dillon and his family moves to La Plata when he was elected senator and served during three terms in the Buenos Aires legislature, in which he chaired the budget commission.

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 Moreno. The construction of the railway made land speculation a highly profitable activity. In order to reach Merlo the line had to pass through the land owned by the Pearson Family and Dillon saw the opportunity to make huge profits by selling out parts of the family's estate.

Dillon established in Merlo and in 1859 he commissioned the famous architect and engineer Pedro Benoit to design the layout of the town, organizing it on a rectangular grid of streets and blocks. The town was enlarged and endowed with a municipal palace, avenue, train station, school and church.

The rail station was opened on August 11, 1859.

Dillon and others businessmen and prominent neighbors such as Manuel Rodríguez, Enrique Smith and Fernando Pearson (Juan Dillon's step brother), petitioned to the Governor the erection of a new partido from the old Partido of Morón.

On October 11, 1864 the legislature of Buenos Aires sanctions the law 422 creating the Partido of Merlo. Until 1878 the new district included the today's Partido of Marcos Paz and comprehended 400 km² approx.

The election of the authorities took place in the same year and only sixty-four citizens voted; the first municipal government was integrated by Juan Dillon as Juez de Paz and Antonio Suárez, Francisco Sullivan, Fernando Pearson and Tomás Gahan as Municipales or Councilors.

Thousands of neighbors fled Buenos Aires to the countryside when a cholera epidemic first, and a yellow fever outbreak later, afflicted the city in 1867 and 1871 respectively. These events brought many Spaniard, Basque, Italian and French immigrants to Merlo, contributing with a highly qualified working force.

There was also a small British community constituted mainly by white collar workers, employed in the British railway companies. By the late 19th century many rural settlements were dispersed throughout the countryside, thriving along the rail tracks. The railway prompted the accelerated development of Merlo in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; San Antonio de Padua, Mariano Acosta, Libertad and even Merlo city grew as railway towns.

Merlo was a countryside district until the late 1940s. People from Buenos Aires spent their weekend and summer getaways in cottages, picnicking at the Reconquista riverside, playing golf at the Ituzaingó Golf Club and gliding at the Club Albatros and Club Cóndor gliding clubs. The landscape was spattered with estancias and farms.

During the first half of the 20th century the two mayor political forces in the district were the Radical Civic Union and the Conservative Party of Buenos Aires.

Aerial sight of Avenida Ituzaingó (present days Avenida del Libertador San Martín), Merlo city's main street, around 1950. In upper-right corner, Parque San Martín.

In the second half of the 20th century Merlo experienced an important influx of immigrants from the provinces. Between 1947 and 1960 the district quintuplicates its population, initiating a rapid process of urbanization and incorporating Merlo into the Greater Buenos Aires.

This period coincided with the rise of the Peronism in Argentina and since then the district becomes a Peronist stronghold.

Population: 469,985 (2001 census)
Median age:
total: 29.6 years
male: 28.7 years
female: 30.4 years

Urbanized Population: 99.7% (2001)

Population by origin: (2001)
born in Buenos Aires Province: 60.2%
born in the rest of Argentina: 34.6%
foreign-born population: 5.74%

Total fertility rate: 2.1 children born/woman (2001)

Literacy:
definition: age 10 and over can read and write (2001)
total population: 98.19%
male: 98.27%
female: 98.11%

Educational level: (population 15 years and more, 2001)
Population that never attended school: 3.97%

Basic needs poverty rate: 23.4% (2001)

Dependency ratio: (2001)
total: 60.1%
population under 15 years: 48.9%
population over 65 years: 11.1%

Crime rate: 188 per 10,000 inhabitants (2005)

• Club Atlético San Antonio de Padua
• Club Atlético Ferrocarril Midland
• Club Atlético Argentino de Merlo
• Club Social y Deportivo Merlo
• Club Ferrocarril Oeste de Merlo

• Ituzaingó Golf Club
• Libertad Golf Club

• Circuito Ciudad de Merlo