The fertile soil of Calauan attracted the attention of Captain Juan de Salcedo, when he passed through Laguna and Tayabas (now
Quezon) on his way to
Bicol in 1572. Ten years later, Spanish authorities established a town government from the site of the present Poblacion, in what is now Barrio Mabacan. They called the townsite “Calauan” (
Tagalog word for rust). Following in epidemic in 1703, the town was moved to its present site at the fork of three roads—now to the south-west leading to
San Pablo, the other southeastward to Santa Cruz, the provincial capital, and the third going North to Manila. At the turn of the 18th century, when Bay was designated as the provincial capital of Laguna, Calauan functioned as a sitio under its jurisdiction. As a result, merchants traveling to and from Southern Luzon commonly passed through both Bay and Calauan, contributing to the area’s early economic activity and connectivity within the region.In 1812, a wealthy Spaniard named Iñigo acquired extensive tracts of land in Calauan. These holdings, later expanded and maintained by his heirs, remained largely undeveloped for a considerable period due to their vast size. The estate came to be known as Hacienda Calauan, a name that persists in historical references to the area. According to the 1818 Spanish census, the settlement had a population consisting of 610 native families and 2 Spanish-Filipino families, reflecting its early demographic composition during the colonial period. About a century later, the people of Calauan fought a “guardia civil” during the Philippine Revolution. Basilio Geiroza (better known as Cabesang Basilio) and his men routed a battalion of “guardia civiles” in a five-hour battle in Bario Cupangan (now Lamot I) in December 1897. During the subsequent Philippine-American hostilities, Calauan patriots fought numerically superior forces of General
Elwell Otis in Barrio San Diego of San Pablo. With the establishment of civilian authority in Calauan in 1902, the Americans assigned Mariano Marfori as first “presidente”. Hacienda Calauan financed the construction of a hospital in 1926, and Mariano O. Marfori Jr. son of the first municipal presidente, as hospital director and the resident physician, respectively. In 1939, by the request of President
Manuel L. Quezon, Doña Margarita Roxas vda. de Soriano, granddaughter of the
Spaniard, Iñigo., subdivided Hacienda Calauan and sold it to the tenants, part of what remained was converted into a rest house and a swimming pool and it became one of the tourist attractions until 1956. In 1993, the town became the focus of media attention when
Antonio Sanchez, who was serving as
mayor at the time, got involved into
a rape and double murder case involving two
University of the Philippines Los Baños students. Sanchez and several other men were given a life sentence in March 1995. == Geography ==