During the next decades, the region was settled by immigrants coming mostly from the Italian regions of Veneto, Trentino, and Lombardia.
The original settlement was an agricultural colony called Colonia Margarita, in lands belonging to José Gálvez, then governor of the province, who rented it for farming, mainly to Italian immigrants from Piamonte and Lombardia.
Gervasoni is an Italian surname from the Lombardia region of Italy and the Ticino canton of Switzerland.
Despite the implementation of sewage treatment, overall water quality remained poor, until the major disaster of 23 February 2010, when unknown criminals poured into the river, near Villasanta, the contents of several silos containing oil and other hydrocarbons, all belonging to a company named "Lombardia Petroli".