The town of San Fernando was founded in 1754 from the towns of
Bacolor and
Mexico. The first church was built in 1755 with wooden walls and nipa roofing. The municipal tribunal was erected later in the year in front of the town plaza using durable materials and thatched nipa roofing. Don Vidal de Arrozal served as its first gobernadorcillo that year. In 1796, after serving as gobernadorcillo the previous year, Don Ángel Pantaleon de Miranda retired to Barrio Saguin, from where he started setting up his hacienda in Barrio Culiat. The barrio was separated from San Fernando on the December 8, 1829 as the new town of
Angeles, with the Los Santos Ángeles Custodios as titular patrons. An expediente requesting the transfer of the provincial capital of
Pampanga to San Fernando was signed on the August 6, 1852. Real Cedula 745, approving the transfer of the provincial capital of Pampanga from Bacolor to San Fernando, was signed on September 11, 1881. This transfer did not, in the event, materialize. In 1878, actions were made to create the town of Calulut. This new town would be composed of Calulut and the neighboring barrios of Bulaun, Malpitic, Sindalan, La Paz, Lara, Saguin, Telabastagan, Balete, Malinao, Pulung Bulu, Panipuan, Macabacle and the caserio of Pau in San Fernando, and Panipuan, Acle, Suclaban and the sitio of Gandus in Mexico. This plan did not materialize, owing to strong opposition from the parish priest of San Fernando. Governor-General
Eulogio Despujol and Manila Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda inaugurated the San Fernando railroad station, together with the Bagbag-Mabalacat stretch of the Manila-Dagupan Railroad, on February 2, 1892. The station was second only to Manila in revenues that year, and was thus the most important provincial station of the Manila-Dagupan Railroad. On June 27 of the same year,
José P. Rizal made a stopover in the town as part of his mission to recruit members to the
La Liga Filipina. On September 1, 1896, the town was declared to be in a state of war despite its peaceful situation. Brigadier General Diego de los Rios arrived on December 2 to calm the revolution that started in Manila on August 30. General Ruiz Serralde took over Rios's post on June 26, 1897, to maintain the peace in San Fernando. The revolution was not yet at its height with occasional exchanges of fire in some places in Pampanga. On June 26, 1898, representatives from all Pampanga towns, except
Macabebe, gathered in San Fernando to swear allegiance to Gen. Maximino Hizon, who was the provincial military governor and representative of the revolutionary president, Emilio Aguinaldo. On October 9, Aguinaldo and his cabinet visited the town, and were welcomed with so much applause and enthusiastic cheering from the public. He proceeded to the convento which was served as the military headquarters at that time. On May 4, 1899, Philippine revolutionary troops led by General
Antonio Luna burned the
casa municipal, the town church and several houses to render them useless to the approaching American forces. On June 16, due to the strategic location of the town, Aguinaldo himself led Filipino forces in the Battle for San Fernando. The plan to retake the town proved unsuccessful. Calulut fell to the Americans on August 9. On August 15, 1904, the Pampanga provincial government was finally transferred to San Fernando from Bacolor, by virtue of Act No. 1204 signed on July 22, 1904. This was during the term of Governor Macario Arnedo and Municipal President Juan Sengson. The town of
Minalin became part of San Fernando that same year. It would regain its political independence in 1909. On January 2, 1905, the town of
Santo Tomas was consolidated with San Fernando by virtue of Act 1208. On August 12, 1904, U.S. Secretary of War
William H. Taft visited the town to get first-hand information and gather ideas for the governance of Pampanga. Owing to the short notice, a bamboo pavilion was hastily constructed for his visit, where he was welcomed with a banquet for 200 people. Taft would later be elected President of the United States. In 1921, the
Pampanga Sugar Development Company (PASUDECO) sugar central began its operations. The company was formed in 1918 by large-scale planters such as José de León, Augusto Gonzales,
Francisco Tongio Liongson, Tomás Lazatin, Tomás Consunji, Francisco Hizon, José Henson, and Manuel Urquico in the San Fernando residence of Governor Honorio Ventura as part of a plan to construct a locally financed
central. In 1932, the
Socialist Party of the Philippines was founded by
Pedro Abad Santos. Two years later, he created and headed the
Aguman ding Maldang Talapagobra (AMT). The Abad Santos compound in Barangay San Jose became the focal point of the peasant movement. On February 14, 1939, Philippine president
Manuel L. Quezon proclaimed his social justice program before a gathering of farmers in front of the Municipal Government building. In 1941, forces of the
Imperial Japanese Army occupied the town and placed the municipal government under its supervision. The following year, thousands of Filipino and American
prisoners of war walked from Bataan to the San Fernando Train Station in what will be known as the
Bataan Death March. In 1952, the town of
Santo Tomas was separated from San Fernando. On December 16, 1980,
Jose B. Lingad, a lawyer and politician, was shot dead at the gasoline station while sitting alone in the driver's seat of his car in the morning by a lone gunman during the
Martial law under the President and dictator
Ferdinand Marcos. In 1986, Paterno Guevarra was sworn in as officer-in-charge of the town after the successful People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship that same year. He was later elected municipal mayor. On December 31, 1987, former mayor Armando Biliwang was campaigning in Barangay San Jose to be elected mayor again when communist insurgents from the
New People's Army fired gunshots in his direction, narrowly avoiding getting killed while his nephew was fatally wounded. In 1990, Philippine president
Corazon Aquino inaugurated the Paskuhan Village, the first Christmas village in Asia and the third of its kind in the world. The following year,
Mount Pinatubo erupted after over 600 years of dormancy hurling a layer of ash and volcanic debris on the town. On October 1, 1995,
Typhoon Sibyl (Mameng) struck the town. It unleashed floodwaters and mudflows from Mount Pinatubo into the town. The Barangays of Santo Nino, San Juan, San Pedro Cutud and Magliman were severely damaged by lahar. The citizens of San Fernando rallied to save the town by raising funds to build the St. Ferdinand People's Dike. The Pampanga Megadike was constructed the following year, thus preventing further damage to the town.
Cityhood On January 6, 1997, Mayor
Rey Aquino and Senator
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo launched the campaign for cityhood. On April 27 of that same year, Rep.
Oscar Rodriguez filed House Bill No. 9267 creating the City of San Fernando. In 2000, House Speaker
Arnulfo Fuentebella and Senate President
Aquilino Pimentel Jr. signed the approved city charter of San Fernando on December 4 and 13 respectively. The town officially became a component city on February 4, 2001, following the ratification of Republic Act 8990 in a plebiscite from the previous day, making it the 99th city in the Philippines. Rey Aquino was the city's first mayor. On the morning of April 30, 2022, Barangay Alasas chairman and
PDP-Laban city council candidate Alvin C. Mendoza was driving through Brgy. Magliman with his family in an SUV heading to his party's headquarters during the
2022 local election when he was shot sixteen times by motorcycle-riding gunmen. After the incident, his wife Rosalie ran in his stead as "Alvin Mendoza" and won the second-highest number of votes among candidates for councilor. In his investigation,
Lubao, Pampanga police executive Ceazar Dalay regarded a gun-for-hire group leader with the alias Jason Alvarez as a suspect in the assassination. ==Geography==