History

History

By Laura Granfortuna

The first inhabitants of this region were the Comechingón people, a primarily agricultural society who lived in huts constructed partially below ground. (If you want you can tour the caves where they used to live.) In 1573 Spanish conquistadors arrived and took control of the land, founding Córdoba.

By the late 1800s, the rapidly growing city was looking for a new water supply, prompting the construction of the San Roque Dam in 1869 below the supervision of Don Rudecindo Paz. The first hotels and restaurants started to crop up after the dam’s completion in 1891 and the formation of the San Roque Lake in 1892, and the fledgling town began to attract a steadily increasing flow of tourists. The land was inherited by Rudecindo Paz’s son, Carlos Nicandro Paz, in 1904 following his father’s death. Carlos Nicandro officially registered the town on July 16, 1913, a day now celebrated with the Fiesta Patronal de la Virgen del Carmen.

In 1944 a new San Roque dam was constructed to accommodate surges in the water levels. The town officially became a city in 1964.