Historical monuments and Significant Places

The Old Brigde
With the fall of Rosas in Caseros, happened in February of 1852, a stage of divisions it begins in the country. The county was organized in municipalities whose mission was to administer and to keep the interests of each one of these jurisdictions. It is so, the 22th of may of 1856 it is settle the municipality of San Antonio de Areco that is in charge of the Judge of peace don José E. Martínez.

One of the works of more importance that carried out was to prepare the tender of a bridge on the Areco River that facilitated the communications among both costs. Firstly it was called "The Martine´z bridge", later take the name which it arrives to the present time, 140 years later: The Old Bridge.

Everything makes suppose that it takes that name when The Wooden Brigde is built and it was denominated The New Bridge until its current baptism as "The Gabino Tapia´s bridge". The legendary Concolocorvo, the trip´s teller and historian of that time, located in their book "The Guide of Blind Walkers" written 80 years before the construction, the necessity of a bridge in that place, obliged step of the real road to the High Peru.

The bridge was built in 1857; the funds were got from the stock issue that were taken by neighbors that constituted an administration body. They say that it is one of the first bridges of the country that toll right were collected. It worked during the day and there was a stall in one of their heads with the guardian that was the collector of the toll. At nightfall, the access was closed with chains. Several shareholders donated their investment collections to the municipality, until in 1858, it was given the administration of the bridge to the municipality.

In the left riverbank of the river, three hundred meters field inside was the grocery "La Blanqueada", provisioning place tames and leisure of the peasantry. On the opposed side, it was the post of Don Florencio Moyano that could prepare about two hundred horses and in their funds it worked a tahona and a butcher shop. This gave place to the formation of a small urban nucleus with humble adobe ranches and roofs of tiles and straws in where nowadays are the Moreno, Alsina, Lavalle and Zerboni streets.

Also, the bridge is mentioned in the first paragraph of "Don Segundo Sombra", Ricardo Güiralde´s maximum work. He describes it poetically: "In the outskirts of the town, about ten blocks of the central square, the Old Bridge spreads its arch on the river, uniting the country seat to the calm field" For all these things and for others animated ones by legend and the art, The Old Bridge is a symbol for the habitants of San Antonio de Areco.

"La Blanqueada" grocery
La Blanqueada is the local of an authentic restored grocery of more than 150 years of life. Also, it has their own history: Ricardo Güiraldes uses the place in a passage of fiction in his "Don Segundo Sombra". It makes that in their interior the first encounter of Don Second with Fabio developed. A grill separates the interior of the patio.

Through her, like a prevention, the pulpero served the unknown outsiders; the well-known parishioners had access to the grocery and there they were served and given place to play cards and to have a conversation.

Inside the grocery, interpreted by puppets of wax, a group of gauchos play cards before the look of the pulpero. These have pony boots and chiripá and in the head they dress a red handkerchief, typical of the compatriots in the Rosista period. Everything recreates the atmosphere, the grill, the counter, the bottle- staff, the furniture.

"Parque Criollo" and Gauchesco Museum Ricardo Güiraldes

"Parque Criollo"
Founded and built by the government of the county. The original name of this institute was Creole Park Ricardo Güiraldes and Gauchesco Museum of the County of Buenos Aires, official denomination that the government of the county of Buenos Aires imposed it, which depended since it foundation until in the 80's decade it was transferred to the municipality of San Antonio de Areco.

The facilities rise in a property of almost 90 hectares in the outskirts of the town passing the Old Bridge. There is The Grocery "La Blanqueada". The immediate antecedent of the foundation of the Creole Park and Museum should settle down in 1936, year in which was municipal intendant of San Antonio de Areco, José Antonio Güiraldes, the writer's brother. For his initiative it is carried out in the Deliberative Council, in the Municipal House a Traditional Exhibition. His foundations were: the duty of conserve and adopt the uses and our ancestors' customs as guide of the present generations and as an example for the coming ones. A town with more than 200 years of existence and with an purified love to our tradition, with their typically Creole customs have the obligation and rights to expose their works to the consideration of the habitans of this lands.

The first day it visits the exhibition the engineer José María Bustillo, the municipal intendant's friend. This, lover of the beloved things of his homeland, coincides with the thought of his friends the Güiraldes, and the neighbors of Areco, and he surrenders to imagine the creation of a county park on the pattern of an old stay where they could relax the Creole customs of the past and to conserve the traditional patrimony. For that time, the governor of the county Manuel A. Fresco, approves the project of his Public work´s Secretary.

The Creole Park with the Museum inside of it, was inaugurated the 16th of October of 1938 with the presence of the governor of the county. It takes Ricardo Güiraldes´s name in honor of the author of the novel "Don Segundo Sombra", published in 1926. Their creator died in 1927 and his remains - as those of Don Segundo - rest in the cemetery of our city. This institution offers expressions of the Argentinean past that are linked with the gaucho, its customs, uses, means of life and contributions to the domestic greatness in the typical aspects of the folklore from the county.

The Museum´s house
Surrounded by a moat of water, which is crossed by a drawbridge, the museum´s house is presented like a strength. In this way were the stays located in the solitude of the pampas like advanced by the civilization. The large house reproduces a country property of the XVIII century, with its hospital corridor, both lateral salient of the building, the roofs of colonial tiles, its white walls and its low grills.

Parish San Antonio de Padua

Between the years 1710 and 1714 were several invasions of Indians that killed, destroyed, burned and made big disasters on the populations of the Areco and Arrecife´s district. As a consequence of it the residents of Areco made the promise to San Antonio de Padua of building a chapel in their honor if they were free of the malones that whipped them.

As that happened during several years, Don José Ruiz de Arellano founded the first oratory in the principal site of his stay. This oratory worked in one of the rooms where the parishioners worshipped San Antonio de Padua image. In other room lived the chaplain Don Roque Ximenes. Him as the oratory were sustained economically by the owner of the stay. The foundation of this oratory was the fundamental stone to the creation of our town.

The years passed and between 1720 and 1728 the first chapel was built. This was summoned in the same place that the current one, with the same front, but located more to the right looking it from the Square. Their walls were built with raw adobe; the roof was made of tiles, with three doors of two jambs and a window. The tower was built toward 1759. The 23th of October of 1730, was created the first six campaign rectories, among those was the Pago de Areco.

In consequence, the chapel becomes parish. That date is taken as the foundation´s day of the town. In 1782 the second church was built immediately on the right of the current one. That was the old place that mention the documents. In this church mass was officiated up to 1779, date that was sent to demolish for order of the Bishop from Buenos Aires Brother Sebastian Malbrán Pinto, to build a new one. For different circumstances the construction began three years later [1782]; it was stopped a year and the new building was enabled in 1792. The inauguration party lasted three days. The new temple had double the size of the previous one, with shingle roof two waters and wooden cabriada of the Paraguay. The floor was of thick tiles manufactured in the town and its front didn't have steeple.

It worked up to 1868, year in it was demolished by the same cause that the previous one, being left the sacristy to officiate mass while it was built the third and current church.

The third temple was inaugurated the 9th of July of 1870. The construction was designed and directed by the engineer Enrique Hunt, when the Presbítero José Matías Cambra was the parish priest. The primitive construction had several modifications, being the most important the actual one in 1940, during the rectory of the Presbítero Juan C. Duke.

The family Laplacette was one of the main donors of the resources for the remodeling. The fundamental stone of the current church was placed the 7th of February of 1869 and it was buried under the central entrance door. Inside her a lead box was placed that contains the original act written in parchment, newspapers of the day, medals and currencies of the time.

Don Segundo Sombra - Ricardo Güiraldes

Ricardo Güiraldes
He was born in Buenos Aires city the 13th of February of 1886. It was baptized as Ricardo guillermo names. Their father's occupations take to their family to Europe when he was one year-old, returning four years later. In 1910 he traveled to Europe and visited Italy, Greece, Germany and Russia. Lastly he knows the India and returns to Paris. the 20th of October of 1913, he marry Adelina del Carril.

In September of 1915 he publishes "The Cowbell of Glass" and "Stories of Death and Blood." In 1917 appears "Raucho" and in 1922 "Rosaura." The following year publishes "Xamaica" . He has 39 years old and printed in Don Francisco Colombo's printing, in San Antonio de Areco, "Don Segundo Sombra" and receives the First National Prize of Literature. One year later, in 1927, he travels to Europe where he concludes "The Path."

He dies in Paris, the 6th of October of that year and he is brought to his homeland and buried in San Antonio de Areco cementery the 15th of November. Their tomb is closed by a tablet in which the last paragraph of his book "Raucho" is read: Here Ricardo Güiraldes lies, crucified of calm on his always land. Their books of posthumous publication are "Solitary Poems", "Mystic Poems", "The Path", "The Brave Book" and "Pampa". In 1961, it was printed by EMECE Editors, from Buenos Aires, with the title "Ricardo Güiralde's Complete Works".

Don Segundo Sombra
The association of ideas is forced: The Novel "Don Segundo Sombra" and the Pago de Areco. The novel is narrated in autobiographical form and in episodes that are adjusted to the structure of the trip. This trip is a search and a destination and as most of the trip novels, also a learning: Since the main character, Fabio, returns man overcoming different obstacles and tests. Fabio changes from guacho to gaucho. Don Segundo is not a realistic figure, in spite of being inspired by a real person, but rather is idealized, it is a synthesis of values. "It is more an idea that a man" the narrator says. The history of this novel is tied with Ricardo's stays in "La Porteña", the paternal stay. The godfather (the resero Don Segundo) and the godchild begins a trip around fields and prints of the county plain. It is a teaching trip taken of the rude life of a field´s man. The first paragraph describes a place of the town: "About ten blocks from the central square, the old bridge, spreads its arch on the river uniting the country seat to the calm field". Then, in "La Blanqueada" grocery, also real existence, as the bridge.