Following Rosas' 1852 overthrow, the area was given a county seat (Mar del Tuyú) in 1864 and, with the arrival of abattoirs, the government had fishermen's docks, a canal between San Clemente and Buenos Aires, a railhead and two lighthouses built between 1878 and 1902.

The project's success led to the first gravel road into San Clemente in 1932 and its formal designation as a municipality; soon followed service stations, campgrounds, real estate developments, a power plant and even a monastery.

San Clemente del Tuyú, the northernmost among seven sea-side communities in the Partido de la Costa district, today counts 27 hotels (of which 14 are three or four-star establishments).

The seven sister communities receive nearly a million visitors monthly during the peak summer season (January and February),[2] of which San Clemente del Tuyú hosts roughly one tenth, given its proportion of the district's hotel room availability.

[3] A considerable number of summertime visitors also come to enjoy Benedictine monk Mamerto Menapace's sermons and lectures, which takes place at the order's San Clemente estancia and offers ascetic "pilgrim" accommodations.