Last modified: 2021-12-23 by rob raeside
Keywords: comandante fernández department | chaco province | argentina |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
![[Presidencia Roque Saenz Pena flag]](../images/a/ar-h-sp.gif)
image by Ivan Sache, 05 Jan 2014
The municipality of Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña (locally known as Sáenz Peña; 96,944 inhabitants in 2010, therefore the 2nd most populous municipality in the province) is located in the center of the Chaco Province, 170 km from Resistencia.
Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña was established on 1 March 1912 by Carlos D. Fernández, commander of the 6th Cavalry Regiment, who granted plots to six Spanish colonists of Andalusian origin. The settlement was built on a site known as Campo Largo, located at Km 173 of the Barranqueras-Metán railway.
The colony was set up to grow cotton "Mamita", a cultivar bred by the agronomist Augusto Schulz at the Colonia Benítez Agricultural Station, which was awarded the 1st prize in an exhibition held in Spain in 1905. In 1914, the Czech colonists Sasvata and Novotny sold in Resistencia the first cotton harvest from Sáenz Peña, initiating the cotton boom in the town. In the 1940s, Sáenz Peña was the first cotton producer in Argentina; the Cotton National festival was initiated in the town in 1947.
The municipality of Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña was established on 21 September 1923 and inaugurated on 16 November 1923.
Roque Sáenz Peña (1851-1914) was Deputy for the Buenos Aires Province (1876-1878). After his resignation, he served as a Colonel in the Peruvian army during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). Back to Argentina in 1880, Sáenz Peña appeared as the favourite candidate at the 1892 presidential election; his opponents convinced his own father, Luis Sáenz Peña, to compete, so that the son withdrew and the father was elected. In the next years, Roque Sáenz Peña withdrew from politics and served as a diplomat; in 1910, he announced he would compete in the presidential elections. Seventeenth President of the Republic in 1910-1914, Roque Sáenz Peña significantly contributed to the democratization of political life by the electoral reform prescribed by Law No. 8,874 of 10 February 1912 (aka as Sáenz Peña Law).
The flag of Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña is prescribed by Municipal Ordinance No. 7,519 of 1 March 2013.
The flag is white with a green right-angles triangle at upper hoist and a light blue right-angled triangle at lower fly. In the middle of the flag is placed a golden yellow emblem.
The flag, selected in a public contest, was designed by 23-year old Roy Pablo Milán.
The green triangle represents the cropped fields and the high ecological value of the local mount and of the municipal ecological complex, the town's green lung.
The blue triangle represents the thermal water as a source of health.
The white and blue field recall that the town belongs to the Province of Chaco and to Argentina.
The emblem is made of three elements representative of the town's history: