The first European navigator to visit the beaches and cliffs of what one day would become Mar del Plata was Sir Francis Drake in his 1577 circumnavigation voyage. He introduced the name Cape Lobos in the cartography of his time, due to the large colony of sea lions (lobos de mar in Spanish) around the cape today known as Cabo Corrientes. Just four years later, the Spanish Governor of the River Plate, Don Juan de Garay (second founder of Buenos Aires) explored the area by land, and paid tribute to the beautiful landscape by describing it as a muy galana costa (a very elegant shore). This is today one of the city's favourite mottos.Historia de Mar del Plata: Descubrimiento
In 1742, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, eight survivors of , part of Admiral Anson's expedition, lived through a ten-month ordeal before being decimated and captured by the nomadic tribe of the Tehuelches, who eventually handed them to the Spaniards.Historical Materials from Southern Patagonia
In 1746, by order of the Spanish Kingdom, a Jesuit Order's mission was established on the northwestern shore of what is now Laguna de los Padres, some west of the modern city, but it was abandoned after a series of northern Tehuelches attacks, led by native chieftain Cangapol. On 15 November 1770 a punitive expedition departing from Luján and led by Captain Juan Antonio Hernández, with the help of friendly natives, defeated a group of Tehuelches who had been harassing and plundering a number of farms and hamlets beyond the Salado River. The battle took place at the Vulcan Heights, near Sierra de los Padres, where 102 Tehuelches were ambushed and killed.Avance Militar contra los Indios Diario que el capitán, don Juan Antonio Hernández ha hecho, de la expedición contra los indios teguelches In 1772 another Spanish expedition commanded by Captain Pedro Pablo Pabón surveyed the area.Gascón, p. 32 The region was not populated again by Europeans until 1856, when a meat-salting facility was built by Portuguese entrepreneur Coelho de Meirelles, and a stable population settled there.Gascón, pp. 85-86
Foundation and development (1874–1930)
The town was founded on February 10, 1874 by governmental decree, and by initiative of Patricio Peralta Ramos. It is said that Pedro Luro, a Basque merchant, had the idea of turning the growing town into a European-style bathing resort three years later. As the railway began to expand into the province, previously isolated settlements became accessible to visitors from the capital; the first passenger train arrived here from Buenos Aires in September 1886. The subsequent opening of the town's first hotel - the luxurious Bristol Hotel- in 1888 was a great occasion for the Buenos Aires elite, many of whom travelled down for the opening on an overnight train.
The railroad also paved the way to the arrival of European immigrants, mainly Italians, Spaniards and French. Among the Italians, Sicilians and Calabrians started the first fishing activities in the 1890s, although the port of Mar del Plata would only be built in 1916 by a French company. The project was designed and directed by the local engineer Federico Beltrami, son of a Swiss-Italian immigrant, Francesco Beltrami, himself the first recorded builder in the town. Mar del Plata's initial success aside, the richest of Argentina's very rich continued to make their regular pilgrimages to Europe. It took the outbreak of war in Europe to dampen Argentine enthusiasm for the journey across the Atlantic and to establish the town as an exclusive tourist destination. Indeed, the building industry also began in this period, in order to satisfy the demands of the new resort. The different guilds were led mostly by residents originally from Northern Italy, but the next generation included people of Spaniard and Southern Italian stock.
In the late 1920s wealthy Argentine families began to build chalets and mansions near Bristol Hotel, and spent their days at the Playa Bristol beach. They would live in Mar del Plata from November until Easter.
This social background increased the tensions between the elite and the established population. The political intervention of the central power, held by the Conservative Party, in the Municipality's institutions prompted a 1911 Manifiesto from some residents seeking to diminish the national oligarchy influence over local affairs. The following moves brought the Socialists to power in 1919 (see Government in the main article about Mar del Plata), an audacious shift in the summer residence of the Argentine aristocracy. The national Government was also taken over by the Radical Civic Union, its leader, Hipólito Yrigoyen becoming President of the Republic.
Mass tourism (1930–1970)
The first military coup in Argentina's history took place on September 6, 1930, restoring the conservative hegemony in all levels of Government, including the local one. Although unpopular and fraudulent, this old new order brought some progress and investment to an ailing country in the climax of the Great Depression. Mass tourism began to arrive in this decade, helped by improved roads, but it took off in the 1940s and 1950s, when the development of union-run hotels under the Perón presidency put the city within the reach of Argentina's middle and working classes. Peronism, even if elected by overwhelming popular vote, kept some of the Conservative hegemonic practices. This was especially noted in Mar del Plata, where the internal disputes inside the party led to a succession of Comisionados; de facto Mayors imposed by the provincial Governor. None of the Peronist Mayors elected by vote completed his term in office in this nine-year period.Todo es Historia magazine, issue 438, 2004 On the other hand, the social changes promoted by Perón boosted Mar del Plata's economy and middle class as never before.
But allegations of populism, corruption and mismanagement reached the point of no return. The Revolución Libertadora, a combined military and civilian uprising, overthrew Perón on September 16, 1955. In Mar del Plata, as in other places of the country, the Navy supported the rebels and the Army remained loyal to the Government. The naval base outskirts and some points of the city were subjected to heavy shelling from the sea, before the loyalist forces could be dispersed. The action was carried out by the cruiser , a squadron of destroyers and the corvette ARA Republica (former ), the latter inside the port itself.Barili, pp. 324-326 Two fishing boats (Miguel Angel and Corsario) evacuated non-essential personnel from the base, the latter running aground in the process.
If the 1950s were years of economic boom for Mar del Plata, the 1960s saw a skyrocketing development of the building industry, which reached the peak of its activity. The rate of construction per square feet was among the highests in the world, surpassing even that of São Paulo, Brazil.Sebreli, p. 103Mar del Plata, balcón nacional La Nación, 24 November 2002 Like in the 1930s, the growth took place during a period of political turmoil. Peronism was proscribed by the military, but there were some constitutional intervals, all of them dominated by the Socialists at local level. It was certainly one of the most successful decades in Mar del Plata's history.
The last U-boats and other World War II stories
On July 10, 1945, two months after V-E day, a fishing boat leaving the port of Mar del Plata was surprised by coming upon a rusty German submarine. This , , departed from Kristiansand, Norway, on March 3, with a complement of 54 men, under the command of 24-year-old Otto Vermouth. After a failed attack on an Allied convoy off New York City, the boat received a clear message ordering the surrender at the nearest Allied base. The situation looked suspicious to the confused Vermouth, who just a couple of hours before had heard on the wireless station the codename Regenbogen (rainbow), imparted by Admiral Karl Dönitz, which ordered the immediate scuttling of all operational U-boats. Facing these conflicting reports, he decided instead to continue on a southern course, finally reaching the Argentine coast during the early days of July. Unlike the usual procedures of the German military, the decision was taken by consensus. Before entering port to surrender to the Argentine authorities Vermouth threw overboard the codes and code machines, and discarded the 88 mm deck gun and torpedoes. The boat had been launched in 1941 and in 1943 had sunk the freighter Milos and the tanker Sunoil, and torpedoed and damaged the oiler Chapultepec. The crew was immediately interned by presidential decree and taken by bus to Buenos Aires.
On August 17 the German submarine U-977 (commander Heinz Schaeffer) was surprised on the surface, off the naval port, by the minesweeper ARA Py and the submarine ARA Salta. U-977 was boarded and towed to the military docks. Unlike Vermouth, Schaeffer released his U-boat intact, giving up to the Naval Authorities codebooks, code machines, guns and torpedoes, as a goodwill gesture. U-977, launched in 1942, had been damaged on her maiden trip by collision and spent her days as a school ship in the Baltic. Schaeffer learned about the death of Adolf Hitler a few days after departing from Kiel. As with U-530, the crew were allowed to vote on their fate. The married personnel opted for return and landed in Norway; the other seamen decided to make the long and dangerous trip to Argentina. After sailing for more than 100 days, Schaeffer had the Argentine coast on sight. On August 22, U-977s 31-man complement was transported to the capital. There was speculation about the submarine carrying some of the Nazi regime's prominent figures, but according to Canadian historian Ronald C. Newton, this proved to be just a legend born largely before the surrender of any German unit in Argentina. Both commanders were interrogated about the landing of personnel before the surrender, with a young Argentine sailor of German ancestry acting as interpreter.
Analysis of U-530's fuel consumption and U-977s log left little room for the boats to have executed any suspicious activities before reaching Mar del Plata. The German sailors and the submarines were eventually turned over to the United States Navy.
This episode was not the only World War II affair involving Mar del Plata. A less well-known German landing had taken place the year before: early on July 3, 1944 the yawl Santa Bárbara anchored a few yards off the coast near Punta Mogotes, then an area with extensive sand dunes, some southwest of the port. The vessel had been chartered by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) with the mission of infiltrating two fully equipped spies in Argentina and to repatriate another three.Newton, Ronald C., p. 260 The operation was a complete success, and the Allies only learned about Santa Bárbara several months later. The sailboat had departed from Arcachon, France, on April 16. The D-Day landings prevented the return to France, and the sloop delivered her passengers to Vigo, in neutral Spain.Newton, Ronald C., pp. 260-261 Another World War II related action was the interception of the German steamer Erlangen by the British cruiser 36 hours after sailing from Mar del Plata with a cargo of tungsten and molybdenum on July 23, 1941. The vessel was scuttled by her crew.The Royal New Zealand Navy: The Cruise of the Leander
From a wide point of view, World War II was an opportunity for the port of Mar del Plata to increase its commercial activities and for its incipient fishing industry to export much-needed shark liver oil to Allied countries.Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana During the war Mar del Plata, like all of Argentina, suffered from a severe shortage of materials such as fuel and metals. Crisis and recovery (1970–2000s)