Rosario

Rosario, a city and river port of Argentina, in the province of Santa Fe, on the W. bank of the Parana, 186 m. by rail N.W. of Buenos Aires. Pop. (1904, estimate) 120,000. It is accessible to ocean-going steamers of medium draught. The city stands on the eastern margin of the great pampean plain, 65 to 75 ft. above the wide river-bed washed out by the Parana. It extends back a considerable distance from the river, and there are country residences and gardens of the better class along the line of the Central Argentine railway and northward toward San Lorenzo. The city is laid out with chessboard regularity, and the streets are paved (in great part with cobblestones), lighted with gas and electricity, traversed by tramway lines, and provided with sewers and water mains. The Boulevard El Santafecino is an attractive residence street with double driveways separated by a strip of garden and bordered by fine shade trees. The chief edifices of an official character are the custom house, post office, municipal hall and law courts. There is a large charity hospital, and the English and German colonies maintain a well-equipped infirmary. The largest sugar refinery in Argentina is here, and there are flour-mills, breweries and some smaller manufactures. The city is chiefly commercial, being the shipping port for a large part of northern Argentina, among its exports being wheat, flour, baled hay, linseed, Indian corn, sugar, rum, cattle, hides, meats, wool, quebracho extract, &c. The railway connexions are good, including the Buenos Aires and Rosario and the Central Argentine lines to the national capital, the Buenos Aires and Rosario line northward to Tucuman, where it connects with the government line to Salta, Jujuy and the Bolivian frontier, the Central Argentine line westward to Cordoba, with connexions at Villa Maria for Mendoza and the Chilean frontier, and two narrowgauge lines, one running to Santa Fe and the other to Cordoba. The port of Rosario has hitherto consisted of a deep river anchorage and wooden wharves on the lower bank for the accommodation of steamers. Since 1902 work has been in progress under a contract with a French company for the construction of 12,697 ft. of quays, 23 m. of railway tracks along the quays to connect with the several railways entering the city, drawbridges, roadways, sheds, depots, elevator, offices, electric plant, fixed and movable cranes, and other appliances, &c., for the handling of produce and merchandise. The trade of the port was officially valued at 21,276,672 Arg. gold dollars imports, and 68,503,231 gold dollars exports in 1905.

Rosario was founded in 1730 by Francisco Godoy, but it grew so slowly that it was still a small village up to the middle of the 19th century. In 1854 General Justo Jose de Urquiza, then at the head of the Argentine Confederation, made it the port of the ten inland provinces then at war with Buenos Aires, and in 1857 imposed differential duties on the cargoes of vessels first breaking bulk at the southern port. This gave Rosario a start, and its trade and population have grown since then with great rapidity.