Welcome to La Cumbrecita, it is one of the smallest but one of the best-known towns in the Cordovan mountains
11/ JUL/ 2020
... It was Helmut Cabjolsky who bought the first hectares and some time later the Valenta, Knöepfli, Fleckenstein, Anz, Zechner, Schöeller, Mayer joined the work. Of course, always adding the locals in the area: Los Giménez, López, Molina, among others.
Surnames that last in the town. Just one example: the current president of the communal commission, Daniel López, is the grandson of Secundino López, and Ingrid Cabjolsky, the current secretary of communal Tourism is the granddaughter of Helmut. Both are descended from the Creole and German pioneers who forged the town.
Today, La Cumbrecita exceeds 700 inhabitants and registers permanent growth. The elementary school had to expand its building due to the growth of the student population. Ten years ago, the Los Tabaquillos Educational Center was created, at a medium level, so that young people could continue their studies in the same town.
When everything was nothing
Many years have passed since that September 7, 1934, when Helmut Cabjolsky bought the first 500 hectares of land in what he then called “Oberalmdorf” (town at the top, in German). In those years the landscape throughout the area was rugged, without trees or roads. Everything was to be done. The transformation, especially due to the green provided by afforestation, is what is most wonderful when comparing the images from the beginning with the current ones.
The closest town was Los Reartes, originally a horse changing post for the Camino Real, which was 12 kilometers in a straight line, but after the first track was built, they became 27 kilometers.
In 1935, Cabjolsky together with his brothers-in-law, Federico and Enrique Berhrend (brothers of Hedwig, wife of Helmut) began the construction of the first summer house with eight rooms, which over the years became the first inn, baptized La Cumbrecita .
In 1938, Cabjolsky's eldest son, Helmut (now 85 years old) by profession as an engineer, started the works of subdivision, laying out the streets, constructing new buildings and afforestation.
It didn't take long for German, Swiss, Austrian and French families to join in the adventure of creating a town.
Isabella Gitter de Mehnert (known as Tante Liesbeth) had been born in 1910 in Dresden (Germany) and at the age of 17 she decided to accompany the Cabjolsky family to Argentina, as a housekeeper. In 1934 the family bought the first hectares in Calamuchita and in 1940 Liesbeth managed with her husband Kurt Mehnert to enable the first confectionery. On February 18, 2005, she passed away, at the age of 94. She was a pioneer, a character in the town and a resident until her last days.
Erica Himmelheber de Bachmann had been born in Hamburg (Germany) in 1921. At the age of 14 she arrived in Argentina and went through her classmates from the Goethe school in Buenos Aires (Helmuth and Klaus Cabjolsky, sons of the town's founder) met the nascent La Cumbrecita in 1938. There she began a great friendship with Tante Liesbeth that lasted forever. In 1955 she bought a house that she visited regularly and in 1969 she settled permanently in the town. For 25 years she dedicated herself to the Kuhstall Lodge and then built the Panorama Hotel. She died at the age of 83, on February 15, 2005. Her remains were scattered in her ornate and well-kept garden, as requested.