In short, the rancher, as the Church's lay representative, ran the town at a time in history when territorial divisions were the Church's parishes. The King's divisions later fell into the same moulds. The present-day district of Exaltación de la Cruz (which borders on those of Zárate, Campana, Pilar, San Antonio de Areco, Luján and San Andrés de Giles) occupies the same area as the parish that was managed from Capil1a del Señor in colonial times.

When the Casco de Mendozas subdivided the land around their house in1735, they built a church. The town cemetery was set up only in 1838. Until then, important people had been buried all around the church, including the area that is now occupied by the town square, which used to be known as Plaza de la Concordia and is now called Plaza San Martín.

There is a little record in the cemetery of the Afro-mestizo population if Capilla del Señor, of which only ten families remain today. When the papacy abolished the Jesuit order in 1773, under pressure from Spain, Portugal and France, the order´s estates were sized and sold off, and the black slaves that worked in them were freed drom bondage. The blacks of the Jesuit ranch near Paraná de las Palmas settled on a spot near the Areco River a few kilometers from Capilla del Señor. The village, known as “the black´s town”, was run by a tribal matriarch, as in Africa. When they saw that they couldn´t make a go of it, they settled in Capilla del Señor, where they became servants of tradesmen. Their village was near a place that today is known as Puerto Chenaut, which consists mainly of the hangar and grass landing strip of an air club.

The cemetery has, however, many gravestones bearing the names of the fist Irish, Italian and French Basque immigrants who were attracted by the prospect of farming enormous areas of rich land around a major trade route.
The Gothic-Renaissance church that replaced the Casco de Mendoza´s colonial structure in 1866 is definitely Irish, with two priests of that nationality buried beneath stone slabs at its entrance, and an ornate altar to St. Patrick inside.
The arrival of the second wave of immigrant farmers coincided with the introduction of barbed wire -which allowed them to fence off large tracts of land and assert ownership over them- and Australian artesian wells which made it possible to set up "inland" ranches far from the natural watercourses that, as the main source of water, had been used as boundaries between farms in colonial times.

The Irish, the largest immigrant group, were sheep farmers. Why they chose this spot for their herds is a mystery; some have surmised that in pre-barbed wire times they wanted to avoid possible conflicts with cattle ranchers near Buenos Aires, as sheep leave very little grass for cattle.
One of the old buildings around Plaza San Martín is the Bernardino Rivadavia School, which was built in l82l as a boys´ grade school. Next to it is the Museum of Journalism in the Province of Buenos Aires, former home of Manuel Cruz, the native-son cultural hero who was the principal of the boys' school and editor of the province's first rural periodical, El Monitor de la Campaña, which was published from 1871 to the end of l873, a year after his death. The name of the periodical has to do with the fact that Cruz's school used the English teaching method whereby a single teacher taught all grades, with the help of his best student, the "monitor”. The periodical had correspondents, was distributed in more than 20 towns, and included a literary supplement. In addition to accounts of new merchandise received by local shops, and Indian attacks on forts on the western frontier, it also revealed the prices that were being paid in the port of Buenos Aires for livestock and grains -vital information for farmers living far from the center of the country’s commercial activities.
The museum is being restored and its display methodology updated.

Cruz also set up the town´s public library (now in the town´s Casa de la Cultura), which frequently staged readings for the benefit of people who couldn 't read.
The other native-son hero was Admiral Julián Irízar, commander of the corvette Uruguay, which rescued the members of the failed Nordenskold expedition in Antarctica in 1903. The Argentine icebreaker that today does the same sort of work he did then, bears his name.
On November 8, 1953, fifty years after the epic mission of the Uruguay, local authorities, members of Irizar's family, surviving crew members of the Uruguay, townspeople and special guests signed a parchment with an inspiring message to future generations, put it into a metal tube painted with the national colors, and buried it in Plaza San Martín. Fifty years later, on November 8, 2003, the town hall unearthed the tube in a ceremony that was attended by many of the descendants of the signatories of the parchment, and the message was read out again.

Most of Capilla del Señor's architectural landmarks -including El Mirador, the tower of a vanished hotel, general store and casino- date from the town's 19th-century agricultural heyday. The "newest" is Mira Lejos, an Italianate mansion built facing the main square in 1927 by Juan Gil, a self-styled visionary who wanted an abode worthy of himself.
The clock stopped in Capilla del Señor soon after that, in the 1930s, when Route 8 was rerouted away from town because, some say, a senator wanted it to pass in front of his ranch. Thereafter, the town languished into its present time-warp condition; it has no industrial park or skyscrapers. No building is over two floors high. Horse-drawn sulkies can still be seen on roads and town streets.

THE PRESENT
So a growing number of porteños are finding the town and its surroundings an ideal place to rest on a weekend, and even live. The first stores selling smart clothing are beginning to appear in remodeled old buildings around the square.
Today Capilla del Señor has two authentic social institutions: the La Fusta bar and restaurant two blocks from the main square at the comer of Mitre and Casco; and Almacén Los Ombúes, one of the last active pulperías (country bar and general store) left in Argentina, behind two ombú trees beside a dirt road 19 km out in the countryside.

The owners of both establishments are conscious of the fact that their little businesses are important meeting places for locals, and they want to keep them that way without modernizations that could distort their essence.
La Fusta, opened 40 years ago and owned by Luis Curone and his son Javier for the past 24 years, installed air conditioning five years ago. Behind half-.rolled-down metal streetside shutters that are half-hidden from within by lace-decorated organdy curtains, the who's who of Capilla society quietly meet for a coffee or a drink, and passing businessmen have the Argentine classics -bife de chorizo or milanesas with potatoes or salad, or pasta-for lunch. Sepia and color photos of old buildings and the first automobiles in town share the cream half-timbered walls with two TV sets, one of which is on, but without sound in deference to noonday patrons. This makes it possible for the owners to converse with regulars and new-comers if the opportunity arises.

The two ombú trees (in reality, giant plants) in front of the Los Ombúes country bar and general store are more than 300 years old, they were around when the first pulpería was built in 1790. The present structure -made of bricks on an adobe foundation- dates back to 1820. It has been in the Inzaurgarat family for three generations -a century. Everything is done as it always has been done in the pampas. Blonde, blue-eyed Elsa Inzaur-garat serves drinks and hors d' oeuvres through the bars of the bar where patrons sit on low stools against the counter, or at small tables against walls with prints of early 20th-century gaucho life by Molina Ocampo. Behind her is the food store whose counter is accessed by a side door separate from the bar. Housewives buy provisions and fresh produce during the day and men come to drink and play cards in the late afternoon, after the day´s work. Gossip flows all day long, and particularly at night before some patrons have had one too many. Now as before, many a poorly paid ranch hand gets food on credit; the purchase is noted down in the storekeeper´s book and paid at the end of the month when the employee collects his salary.

Practicalities
Prospective passengers reserve three or four days in advance by phone or e-mail and pay after the flight. The outfitter phones the final confirmation for a dawn flight on the night before. Noon is the deadline for the go-ahead for a late-afternoon flight. Bet the wind always has the last say.
For those without a car, the best way to get there is Trebol Express´s minibus service from Tribunales in Buenos Aires, with eight departures daily, at 18 pesos return (4774-5633). Many of their passengers live or work in the country clubs around Pilar.
There will be a rodeo on April 10. the town´s saint´s day is September 14. For information on accommodations, tours, activities and events, call the tourist office at (02323)491-347.