Tapiales is a town in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
. It is located in
La Matanza Partido
La Matanza ('The Slaughter' in Spanish) is a '' partido'' (county or department) located in the urban agglomeration of Greater Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.
This provincial subdivision had 1,775,272 inhabitants (at the 2010 Cen ...
and forms part of
Greater Buenos Aires. Tapiales had a population of 15,158 at the 2001 census.
Tapiales was established in 1902 by Agustín Elía along the recently inaugurated
Buenos Aires Western Railway
The Buenos Aires Western Railway (BAWR) (in Spanish: Ferrocarril Oeste de Buenos Aires), inaugurated in the city of Buenos Aires on 29 August 1857, was the first railway built in Argentina and the start of the extensive rail network which was ...
( es, Ferrocarril Oeste de Buenos Aires). Elía, who had purchased the land from the estate of the former Vice President,
Francisco Bernabé Madero, sold the property in 1906 to ''La Franco Argentina'', a prominent Buenos Aires
real estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
company. ''Chacra de Los Tapiales'' ("adobe wall ranch"), built by the Altolaguirre family in the early 19th century, gave the settlement its name and remains as a town landmark.
La Franco Argentina, in turn, sold the land in lots to investors and prospective homeowners, and in 1908, the railway, in which La Franco Argentina owned a stake, inaugurated a station at the site, as well as a
rail yard
A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or u ...
. The town was divided geographically by the opening of the
Riccheri Freeway in 1952, built to connect
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
to the recently inaugurated
Ministro Pistarini International Airport 8 mi (13 km) to the southwest.
Tapiales grew significantly in the subsequent decade with the construction from 1968 to 1971 of a 900-unit
cooperative housing complex by ''
El Hogar Obrero'', a leading firm in the Argentine
cooperative movement
The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement bega ...
. It was later chosen as the site for the
Buenos Aires Central Market; the nation's largest
wholesale market, it was inaugurated in Tapiales in 1984 to replace the
Abasto de Buenos Aires and is the town's largest employer.
References
External links
Tapiales Page and online forum
La Matanza Partido
Populated places in Buenos Aires Province
Populated places established in 1902
{{BuenosAiresAR-geo-stub