Santiago and Valpara�so. San Antonio de Petrel was bordered by properties of Lauriano Gaete and Ninfa Vargas, and Pedro Pavez Polanco.
The area around Pichilemu was very densely populated, especially in C�huil, where there are salt deposits that were exploited by natives. Pichilemu has had censuses taken since the 17th century.
Daniel Ort�zar Avenue, in 1925.
In 1872, President of Chile An�bal Pinto commissioned the corvette captain Francisco Vidal Gormaz to perform a survey of the coast between Tum�n Creek and Boca del Mataquito. He concluded that Pichilemu was the best place to construct a ferry. The family of Daniel Ort�zar, inheritors of the hacienda San Antonio de Petrel, constructed a dock in 1875, which served as a fishing port for a few years, and would be decreed as a "minor dock" by President Jos� Manuel Balmaceda in 1887. Homes were built along the dock on what currently is the Daniel Ort�zar Avenue (Avenida Daniel Ort�zar). The name Pichilemu comes from the Mapudung�n words pichi(little) and lemu (forest).
During the Chilean Civil War of 1891, Daniel Ort�zar and the priest of Alcones were transferred as prisoners from Pichilemu to Valpara�sovia the dock, which was later burned. The dock was later reconstructed and used until 1912, but it never reached "port" status.
The inheritors of Lauriano Gaete and Ninfa Vargas, who were proprietaries of the land which is currently Central Pichilemu, founded the town in late 1891 after conceiving the design of the city with engineer Emilio Nich�n. By decree of President Jorge Montt and his Interior Minister, Manuel Jos� Irarr�zabal, the city was officially established as an "autonomous commune" on December 22, 1891. Jos� Mar�a Caro Mart�nez became the first mayor of the city in 1894, and regularized and improved the design of the city the same year. Caro Mart�nez held the mayor office until 1905.
Agust�n Ross, circa 1915
Agust�n Ross Edwards, a Chilean
