page_title: Pergamino
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Pergamino / History
caption_attribution_description: Plaza Merced, Pergamino, Argentina.
context_page_description: Pergamino is an Argentine city in the Province of Buenos Aires. It has a population of about 104,985 inhabitants as per the 2010 census [INDEC] and is the administrative seat of its county, Pergamino Partido. Its UN/LOCODE is ARPGO.
context_section_description: Long valued for its many springs and fertile land, the area had been home to the Charrúa and Araucanian people when it was first noticed by Spanish colonist around 1620. Becoming a posada along the trade route between colonial Buenos Aires and Córdoba, the settlement was given its name on 3 January 1626, for the parchment paper (document lost by a group of Spaniards) found there and conforming to an Araucanian term meaning "red soil."
  The settlement's first businesses were established in 1700 and in 1749, recurrent attacks by displaced natives led to the construction of a fort. These attacks did not cease, however, and on 8 August 1751 the settlement was destroyed. The site continued to be of interest, and Commander Juan González ordered the village rebuilt on orders from the Buenos Aires colonial government in 1769. The Curate of nearby Arrecifes ordained a Parish in Pergamino in 1779 and the new Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata assigned the area a partido (county) in 1784. The fort played a prominent role during the initial battles in the war for independence and, in 1815, was the site of a mutiny led by Col. Ignacio Álvarez Thomas against the fledgling nation's Head of State, Director Carlos María de Alvear.  Col. Álvarez Thomas' coup d'état against Director de Alvear's brief though highly divisive autocracy averted the dissolution of the United Provinces of the River Plate, the confederacy that later became Argentina.
  Following the struggle for independence, the progressive new Governor of Buenos Aires, Martín Rodríguez, assigned Pergamino a Justice of the Peace in 1822 and the first school was opened in 1828.  The town soon became home to a number of abattoirs and following the 1829 rise of Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas (whose family interests centered around cattle-raising) a close alliance developed between the governor and Pergamino's most prominent families, the Acevedos and the Anchorenas; Rosas' repressive regime, however, resulted in the sole school's closure in 1838.  Following Governor Rosas' 1852 overthrow, the local gentry allied themselves to Bartolomé Mitre, a prominent advocate on behalf of Buenos Aires Province for greater autonomy.  Mitre was elected governor in 1860 and President of Argentina in 1862.  President Mitre's 1862 establishment of Argentina's first institute of Agronomy helped lead to the development of a new economic activity in the region around Pergamino: intensive agriculture. The first Argentine grain shipment to arrive intact in the United Kingdom in 1875 touched off an agricultural boom that for Pergamino, resulted in the massive cultivation of maïze.  The city's growth accelerated further upon the arrival of the Central Argentine Railway in 1882, en route to Rosario. Pergamino, whose population by then exceeded 10,000 and home to over 90 registered businesses, was formally designated as a city on 23 October 1895.
  Continuing to rely economically on maize, local landowners funded the establishment of an agricultural laboratory in 1912. Pergamino's population, now mostly European immigrants and their children, nearly tripled to almost 30,000 between 1895 and 1914; this era saw the establishment of important Basque, Piemontese, Provençal and Lebanese communities, as well as the inauguration of the Hotel Roma in 1913, one of the best-known art nouveau structures in the area. One immigrant from the Piedmont, Enrique Venini, founded Pergamino's first newspaper, La Opinión, in 1917.  The city's growing immigrant communities also included a sizable contingent of British railway engineers and other technicians associated with the rapidly expanding railways.  A number of these staffers and the Central Argentine Railway's director, Ronald Leslie, organized Pergamino's first football team on 18 November 1918, christening it in honor of a British Field Marshal famed for his roles in the Boer War and in World War I, Gen. Douglas Haig. Club Atlético Douglas Haig has enjoyed regional prominence in the Argentine B League.
  Pergamino's main church and city hall were both completed in 1930. Following a 
caption: Merced Plaza.
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