Merlo is the head town of the eponymous partido of Merlo and seat of the municipal government, located in the Greater Buenos Aires urban area of Buenos Aires Province, 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 district clustered around the train station; and the working class barrios, most of them along the Reconquista River.
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 and Paso del Rey—both cities in Moreno Partido—and the Reconquista River (northwest), San Antonio de Padua (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 raids throughout the 18th century.
Francisco de Merlo
Francisco Javier de Merlo y Barbosa was born in Seville, Spain, on August 11, 1693, and died in Buenos Aires on April 4, 1758. Merlo arrived in 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 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 died in Buenos Aires and his last will was his fortune be given to his compatriot, friend and compadre Francisco de Merlo with the condition that a sanctuary be built to his memory and fifty masses celebrated every year for the absolution of his soul.
With that fortune Merlo bought many haciendas in the western countryside and by the middle of the 18th century he established a large estate between the upper Reconquista 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, the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru. At its side Merlo erected a private oratory, fulfilling the last will of his compadre and it was consecrated to Saint Anthony of Padua and the Immaculate Conception. For many years the oratory served as parish church of the huge and almost unpopulated Parish 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 friars.
San Antonio del Camino
In 1742, Francisco de Merlo petitioned king Philip V of Spain 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 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 and where the criollos illegally traded with the Indians.