Named in honor of the 14th century
Dominican friar Saint
Vincent Ferrer, the site was first settled as an
Indian Reduction in 1618 by
Spanish conquistadores and was initially known as
Laguna de la Reducción. Luis Pessoa y Figueroa, a landowner from
Magdalena and member of the
Buenos Aires Cabildo, bought much of the land south of the San Vicente Lagoon (then known as
Laguna del Ojo) in 1696, and his son, Juan Bautista Pessoa, established a small settlement in 1734. A fort,
Fortín El Zajón, was built here by the Blandengues cavalry corps in 1750. Luis Pessoa's grandson, Friar Vicente Pessoa, established the area's first Catholic
parish in 1781 and on 30 December 1784, the county of Magdalena was formally divided into among two other towns, San Vicente. The village was made a county seat by the establishment of one of the province's first
Justice of the Peace courts in 1822. Governor
Juan José Viamonte founded the area's first large
estancia,
La Martiniana, in 1824, and the subsequent establishment of numerous
English Argentine settlers made San Vicente the provincial capital of
sheep farming by 1854, with over 558,000 head. Recurrent flooding from surrounding swampland led provincial authorities to propose relocating the town. Local residents rejected the proposal, however, and on 27 January 1856, the Municipality of San Vicente was formally established. San Vicente became a
bedroom community in later decades of the 20th century, and numerous well-known figures in Argentine sports, history, and culture have resided there. These included
Emilie Schindler; writer
Rodolfo Walsh; comics artist
Dante Quinterno; former
Argentina national football team captain
Jorge Brown; psychiatrist and activist Dr.
Alejandro Korn (after whom a
neighboring town is named); and arguably the town's most famous residents, populist leaders
Evita and
Juan Perón, who purchased a weekend home in San Vicente in 1947. Other local attractions include the San Vicente Lagoon and campgrounds, the Parish of St. Vincent Ferrer, Mariano Moreno Square, and the San Vicente Cultural Museum. ==External links==