The definite growth of the estate is considered to have taken place at the beginning of the 1880s when the region started to be considered as more secure and stable. Then General Rufino Ortega chose the most appropriate lands for the cultivation of cereals and forage.

The first works designed to clear the land and erect buildings, corrals and other installations, were undertaken by making use of the aboriginal labour; they were mainly youths, women and children belonging to regional communities from Northern Neuquén Province who had been captured as prisoners and given to Mendoza families as was the custom in that epoch.

We can read a very illustrative communiqué regarding this fact from a newspaper in Mendoza: “…Monday night, 42 native children of both sexes (“indiecitos”) arrived here guarded by a platoon of the fourth division. Thirty of them had been distributed until yesterday amongst the people who had required their service. They are all between 10 and 12 years of age.” (1879, Diario El Constitucional)

The core of the family Estate and the complementary installations allowing us to understand the dynamics of this enterprise, we have baptized as “Complejo Orteguino”or, Ortegan Complex and is formed by: The manor house of the Ortega Family Estate, The Mill, The Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel, the Corrals and the Park separating the Mill from the family house, the canal system which allowed for the development of the Estate and whose hydraulic energy fed the mill, the clay mines, the lime mines, the Toba mines.  The old outposts surrounding the Estate, all functional to the system and the “General San Martin Fort, better known as “El Alamito” located 8 kilometres to the North of the Estate.

The Origins of the Chapel

The spaces destined to the practice of the Catholic religion were very important in the colonization processes which were started before, during and in the moments after the “Desert Campaign”. Forts used to have special spaces designated for the holding of Mass and it was common in Army battalions to have a priest who organized the necessary services. Estates located in rural areas also counted with a small family chapel. In the case of “The Orteguina” there is no information about the existence of a chapel here though some local authors allow the possibility of its existence.

There used to exist legal rulings in the area, obliging those responsible for colonization and the founding of head villages (which were created after setting up an agricultural or cattle estate) to determine a space for the installation of chapel, “of the four blocks which would become the main plaza which will be called 9 de Julio, the government will keep 2 blocks, one to the West and one to the East from the plaza core, in order to build a chapel, a district house, a school and  barracks.” (Mendoza’s Governor decree from 1880.)

The Chapel: Secrets behind the walls

When the investigation works began, historical data was scarce and muddled regarding construction and the socio cultural context framing the first documented religious space from the time of the settling of the Spanish-“creole”

 population.

The archaeological investigation tasks have uncovered part of the secrets which were buried underneath the central section of the chapel. The existence of a previous construction was discovered and it was registered that this had been used in part when building the chapel.

The first mention of such a construction had been mentioned by Professor Ovando in one of his interviews with a local neighbour. This information started to make sense when the archaeological excavations began. It was discovered that there had been different levels of plastering, only present in the oldest sectors.

 There was a walled door belonging to the previous entrance, adobe made with different vegetable elements, rests from an old kitchen in one of the corners and perpendicular foundations found in the interior of the chapel which would have supported a wall which is not there today. 

The collection of cultural materials found in the archaeological excavations, allow us to see two different moments in the installation of the estate belonging to Rufino Ortega. One of them is related to the beginning of the agricultural and cattle enterprise associated to the rural context and the use of exclusively local resources and materials such as grass used in adobe-making, low roofs and openings specially located seeking protection from winds.

The other one, contemporary to the urban settlement from the beginning of the 20^th Century; this can be observed from the use of traditional materials. Use of wheat waste for elaboration of adobe, zinc roofs, an increase in the quantity of domestic animals remains, glass fragments, glass decorated buttons and a tortoise comb (material later replaced by plastic…)

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