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![[Flag of San Vicente]](../images/a/ar-b-sv.gif)
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by Ivan Sache, 19 Nov 2016The district municipality of San Vicente (21,411 inhabitants in 2001) is located 50 km south of Buenos Aires City. The municipality is made of the towns of San Vicente, Alejandro Korn, and Domselaar (1,711 inh.).
San Vicente was inhabited in the pre-Colombian times by the Pampa and the Querandí. In the beginning of the 17th century, the area was
incorporated to the Magdalena Fields, a huge territory ran by the Council of Buenos Aires. In 1618, Franciscan monks founded a reduction
to evangelize the natives near today's Lake Ojo (then known as Lake Reduction). The influent Pessoa family was granted in 1637 a plot
located south of the lake. Juan Bautista Pessoa established a first settlement in 1737, while Vicente Pessoa erected a chapel a few years
later. He was appointed the first priest of the new parish in 1780. The district of San Vincent was established in 1784, separating from
Buenos Aires. Cañuelas, Ranchos and San Miguel del Monte separated from San Vicente in 1822 to form independent district.
In the 1850s, the inhabitants of San Vincent aspired to relocate the town farther from the lake. Eventually allowed by the provincial
government, the transfer of the town to its today's site was achieved in 1856. At the same time, the district was transformed into a
municipality, the first in the province.
In 1865, the Ferrocaril Sur railway company established the Empalme San Vicente station located 6 km of the downtown and renamed as
Alejandro Korn station in 1960. In the next years, because of the advance of the railway, San Vicente had to transfer parts of its
territory to the neighbouring towns of Brandsen and Almirante Brown. The decrease of the municipal territory did not stop in the 20th
century, with transfers to Esteban Echeverría (1913) and Florencio Varela (1924). The railway station of San Vicente was inaugurated on 1
December 1928, boosting the development of the northern part of the town.
In 1946, Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974) purchased the Quinta de San Vicente estate, which he sued as a vacation house with his wife Eva
(1919-1952) during his first presidential mandate (1946-1955). The estate was transformed into a museum, the remains of Perón being
transferred there on 1 October 2006, in spite of violent opposition. The towns of Guernica and Numancia separated from San Vicente in 1995
to form the municipality of Juan Domingo Perón.
Alejandro Korn is named for the philosopher and psychiatrist Alejandro Korn (1860-1936), who w born in the town. One of the promoters of the
university reform and cultural renovation of Latin America, Korn is one of the five "Wise Men of La Plata", together with the
paleontologist Florentino Ameghino (1854-1911), the anthropologist Juan Vucetich (1858-1925), the poet Pedro Bonifacio Palacios
"Almafuerte" (1854-1917), and the botanist and mycologist Carlos Luigi Spegazzini(1858-1928).
Originally founded as Pueblo de la Estación de San Vicente in 1865, the town was renamed as Empalme San Vicente in 1928 and as Alejandro
Korn in 1960.
Alejandro Korn is the birth place of Carola Lorenzini (1899-1941), the first Argentine women civil pilot. On 31 March 1935, she took off from
the Presidente Rivadavia airfield in Morón and flew up to an elevation of 5,381 m (without either pressurized cabin or supplementary oxygen
supply), which was the South America's record for women. From 24 March to 21 April 1940, she complete an air raid visiting the then 14
provinces and 3 governorates of Argentina. Lorenzini became a popular figure; her fame was even increased by her tragic death on 23 November
1941, during an aviation meeting organized in Morón.
Domselaar is named for Bernardino Van Domselaar, a Dutch colonist who offered in 1868 a plot adjacent to the railway station inaugurated on
14 October 1865. In 1873, he sold his 300-ha plot to four families. Two years later, then new settlement counted some 500 inhabitants, a
rural school and a chapel.
Ivan Sache 19 Nov 2016
The flag of San Vicente was selected in a public contest. Four proposals, short-listed by the Comisión Pro Bandera among the 70 submissions, were offered to popular vote on 8 November 2016. Some 7,900 citizens of San Vicente spread their votes as follows:
Here is a video footage of the inauguration of the flag
Other sites:
Ivan Sache, 20 December 2016