Villa María

Villa María was founded on 1867-09-27 by Manuel Anselmo Ocampo, a young Porteño belonging to a wealthy family that then went to become a Buenos Aires provincial Senator. The town began around the train station, which became a nexus for the railroad system in this part of the country. In 1871 the city was even declared Capital of the Republic by the National Congress, but the law was vetoed by President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento on the grounds that the site was subject to attacks by aboriginal tribes and therefore unsafe for the authorities.

The town became officially a municipality in 1883. Its first mayor was Pedro Viñas. It only had 825 inhabitants, but it grew so fast that by 1915 it had more than 10,000. Villa María became the seat of a Catholic diocese under Pope Pius XII, in 1957.