San Jose de Mayo
San José de Mayo is a Uruguayan city, capital of the department of San José.
Location
It is located in the center of the department on the San José mountain range and the right bank of the San José river, at km 96 of the Montevideo-Colonia railway and at the intersection of national routes 3 and 11.
History
The city of San José de Mayo was founded by Lieutenant of Dragons Eusebio Vidal in 1783, who left Montevideo on May 28 of that year complying with an order from Viceroy Vértiz. With 29 carts, 204 Indians and some forty families they reached the shores of the San José River, where on June 1, 1783 they founded said town. The families that had originally been destined to populate Patagonia were joined by another six that arrived the following year, among which was that of Benito Pérez from the "Obispado de Astorga" being the only family of maragato origin. According to the historian Carlos Larriera, the origin of the families was as follows: 43 Asturian families, 5 Castilian, 2 Galician, 1 Andalusian and 1 Leonese from Astorga.
The lands that were given to the settlers were not enough to support a growing population and, due to the voracity of the neighboring latifundistas, they were forced to present continuous requests to the authorities. The landowner De la Quadra, for example, wanted the Josefinos to evict the lands that belonged to his ranch and even those that they had received when the town was founded. On the contrary, the Medio Cabildo demanded the extension of the ejido of the town and the farms. Viceroy Avilés kept them in the enjoyment of a wide extension, but finally the Royal Court of Buenos Aires gave a ruling in favor of the landowner De la Quadra. In 1804 the struggle became very critical; however, the eviction was repeatedly suspended due to complaints from the neighbors.
In 1806 the house that houses the Departmental Museum of San José was built in a house built 23 years after the founding of the town, belonging to Santiago Ortuño, one of the first men of fortune to settle in San José. It was the first building made of resistant materials built there and maintains its representativeness from the colonial era, for which reason it was declared a national historical monument.
The strategic geographical location of the town, on the natural road that connected Montevideo with the towns of the Uruguayan coast -Mercedes, Paysandú, Salto- and even with Colonia, gave San José considerable military and political value. In October 1811, General Rondeau and José Artigas camped with their army on the outskirts of the town. After the news of the ratification of the armistice, Rondeau began his return to Buenos Aires, while the Orientals began to gather around their chief Artigas, and on the 23rd of that same month he began the march towards exile, what is known as as an exodus of the Eastern people. Years later the town was the protagonist of an important event, in 1822 Brazil became independent from Portugal, while Barón de la Laguna joined the Brazilian side and was forced to leave Montevideo, due to the division that occurred in the occupation army. Thus, it came to control the entire campaign and San José became the capital of the Cisplatina Province from September 1822 to January 1823.
Years later, on May 2, 1825, after the landing of the Thirty-Three on Agraciada beach, the eastern troops of the liberating crusade, led by the three chiefs -Lavalleja, Oribe and Rivera-, they entered and took the town of San José. After the declaration of independence on August 25 of that same year, the town housed the function of the Chamber of Representatives of the province from December 29 of that year until July 27, 1826. Later in 1828 there was the installation of the General Constituent and Legislative Assembly of the State, which was created by virtue of the provisions of the Preliminary Peace Convention, and functioned in San José from November 22, 1828 to December 17 of the same year, date on who moved to the town of Canelones.
In 1856 the town was elevated to the category of city by law 495 of July 12 of that year. By 1867 its population amounted to 3,224 inhabitants. It was not until the 1870s that a considerable increase in the population began to be registered, mainly due to the contribution of immigrants from Spain and Italy.
In 1852, the first stagecoach that kept San José connected for several years arose. The service was owned by the local company «Amigos del Progreso», which had fifteen carriages, a thousand horses, and sheds in San José, Las Piedras, Rosario, Porongos and Mercedes. On May 20, 1876, the "Higueritas" railway line belonging to the central railway was inaugurated and linked San José with the then Juan Chazo station (today 25 de Agosto). In this way, San José became a railway terminal, from where stagecoach services departed that combined with the railway service. At that time, there were already four large vehicle factories in the city that employed more than one hundred workers, saddlery, tanneries, an important brewery, mills and complementary services. One of the most important architectural works that was built at that time was the "New Church", current Cathedral Basilica, whose construction was carried out between 1857 and 1874.
Towards the year 1900 the railway was extended to the west, inaugurating the line San José-Puerto del Sauce, in 1901 the Rosario-Colonia line and in 1902 the Mal Abrigo-Mercedes line, with this San José de Mayo ceased to be the railway terminal of the region, and saw its commerce and industries expand rapidly, this made it one of the largest cities in the interior of the country. At that time the central streets of the city were already cobbled; The city had electricity that was supplied by a local power plant, there had been an important hospital since 1885, and in 1898 the first patriotic monument had been erected. Jose Artigas. In later years important works were carried out, among them the highway bridge over the San José river was inaugurated in 1909, the luxurious Bartolomé Macció theater in 1912 and the Departmental Lyceum was founded in 1913.
Population
According to the 2011 census, the city has a population of 36,747 inhabitants.
Economy
The city combines political-administrative functions (departmental capital), commercial (active regional shopping center), financial (linked to industry and agricultural production) and industrial (dairy, meat processing and milling, chemical agro-industries).
Transportation
The way to access the city is exclusively by road, after the railway service provided by AFE was suspended in 1988 and linked the city with Montevideo.
Bus service
There are several companies that provide bus services between the city of San José and other towns. Among them are: COMSA, to Rodríguez, Santa Lucía, Capurro and Ituzaingó; CITA, with services to Montevideo, Libertad, Santa Lucía and Canelones; COTMI with services to Montevideo, Libertad, Ismael Cortinas, Cardona and Ombúes de Lavalle; Central Agency with services to Montevideo, Trinidad, and the Uruguayan coast; and the company COTAR with services to Villa María, Rafael Perazza, Rincón del Pino, Puntas de Valdez, Kiyú, Libertad, Ciudad del Plata and Nueva Helvecia.
Roads
The city of San José is located at the crossroads of two important national routes:
Route 3: communicates to the south with route 1 and through it with the city of Montevideo. To the north he communicates to San José with the city of Trinidad and the Uruguayan coastline.
Route 11: To the west, it communicates with the town of Ecilda Paullier and to the east with the towns of Raigón, Villa Rodríguez, and the department of Canelones.
Air transportation
The city has a small airfield, the Aeroclub Maragato, located to the west of the city, it has three grass runways without beacons.
Places of interest
Maccio Theater
The Bartolomé Macció theater was inaugurated on June 5, 1912 with the presence of the poet Juan Zorrilla de San Martín. After the death of the farmer from Rincón del Pino Bartolomé Macció in 1900, his widow and his children decided to honor him with the construction of this theater. In 1959 the descendants of the Macció family sold the building to the then Banco San José, who donated it to the Municipal Government of San José. The deterioration of the building determined its closure between 1965 and 1973, a period in which its rehabilitation and restoration began. Since August 14, 1973, it has maintained its activity with both local, national and international works, which position it as one of the most active in the country. It was the last place where Carlos Gardel performed on Uruguayan soil, before his tragic end.
It is the most architecturally important building in the Maragata capital; It has been declared a national historic monument. It has a capacity for 700 spectators distributed in a horseshoe format of the typical Italian opera house. Its Murano glass chandelier and the original Italian plush curtain stand out.
Rodo Park
Rodó Park was created in 1903 by the Italian doctor Francisco Giampietro who named it “Mario Park” in honor of his son born in 1904, an engineer credited with having carried out the First television broadcast in Latin America. It opens its doors to the general public, after passing to the municipal administration in 1914, on March 1, 1915, under the name of "Parque 18 de Julio". In 1917 it acquired its current name and since then the infrastructures of the main green space in the city have been expanded. Among the services it has, a hostel, restaurant, parador, as well as municipal barbecue services stand out. In its perimeter is the Luis Pedro Serra kart track, one of the most important in South America and the Municipal Zoo.
Independence Square
In this square, on June 19, 1894, the cornerstone of the first monument erected in homage to José Artigas was laid. The base comes from a seven-ton mass of granite that was transported by train from a quarry in La Paz, Canelones. The design of the monument had been entrusted to the sculptor Juan Luis Blanes, however, since he died shortly after, the sketch was finished by his father, the painter Juan Manuel Blanes. The statue was modeled by the Italian sculptor Dante Costa. This monument was inaugurated on August 25, 1898, it is 14 meters high, and on its top stands a 3.5-meter bronze figure of General José Artigas, wearing the Blandengues uniform, and carrying a poncho over his shoulder. His slightly raised right hand salutes with a hat and his left rests on a sword. The base of the monument contains a capsule in which are important documents of the time.
Departmental Museum
Its full name is "Instituto Histórico Cultural y Museo de Bellas Artes Departamental", it is located in the center of the city and was inaugurated on August 23, 1947. The museum works in the house of the Ortuño family, this The house was the first construction of resistant materials built in the city, 23 years after its foundation. The house was declared a National Historic Monument.
Sports clubs
The main sports clubs in San José de Mayo are:
- Club Atlético River Plate
- Club Atlético Central
- National Football Club
- Atlético Río Negro
- Club Atlético San Lorenzo
- Club Atlético Tito Borjas
- Club Deportivo y Social Treinta y Tres
- Club Atlético Universal
- Club Social y Deportivo Atlanta El Gráfico
Media
Several radio stations are established in the city, one of them is CW41 Radio 41, which broadcasts in AM (1360 kHz), while the rest do so in FM, they are: CX-300 Main Station (107.9 MHz), CX-256B FM El Lugar (99.1 MHz), CX-277 Encuentro FM (103.3 MHz), CX-248A Radio Maragata (97.5 MHz), CX-205A Nativa FM (88.9 MHz). In the same way, two community radio stations duly authorized under the Uruguayan laws on community radio (Law 18.232 (broken link available at Internet Archive; see history, first and last version). and its regulatory decrees): CXC-245 Radio Timbó (96.9 MHz) and CXC-252B Radio Comunitaria Red Town (98.3 MHz).
As for written media, the newspapers Visión Ciudadana, Primera Hora and San José Hoy circulate in the city.
The city does not have local television channels that broadcast over the air, but it does through cable television, they are: Channel 9 CCV (Consorcio Cable Visión) and Channel 3 (Cable Visión San José).
Local festivals
- Festival of the Mate and Day of the Gaucho: is held in the month of March, in the predio of the Criolla Society Captain Manuel Artigas. The same includes musical shows as well as horsemen, craft fairs and samples of various products. It has become one of the most popular festivals in Uruguay.
Featured Maragatos
- Adrian Medina, one of the Treinta and Tres Orientales (1825), military commander of San José de Mayo (1827).
- Francisco Espínola, writer.
- Hugo Nantes, painter, sculptor and ceramist.
- Francisco Canaro, tango musician.
- Omar Gutiérrez, communicator and presenter.
- Malena Muyala, tango singer.
- Atilio Pelossi, first civilian hero of Uruguay.
- Alvaro Navia, humorist.
- Luis Pedro Serra, cyclist.
- Wenceslao Varela, poet and gauchesco narrator.
- Tatiana Oroño, poet, writer, art critic
- Humberto Ciganda politician highlighted.
- Nelson Di Maggio, art critic
- Edward Johnston, artisan, teacher.
- Daniel Fernández Crespo, politician.
- Laura Cortinas, writer and activist,
- Daniel Ramela Salguero,
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