Named in honor of the 14th century Dominican friar Saint Vincent Ferrer, the site was first settled as an Indian Reduction in 1618 by Spanish conquistadores and was initially known as Laguna de la Reducción.

Governor Juan José Viamonte founded the area's first large estancia, La Martiniana, in 1824, and the subsequent establishment of numerous English Argentine settlers made San Vicente the provincial capital of sheep farming by 1854, with over 558,000 head.

[2] San Vicente became a bedroom community in later decades of the 20th century, and numerous well-known figures in Argentine sports, history, and culture have resided there.

These included Emilie Schindler; writer Rodolfo Walsh; comics artist Dante Quinterno; former Argentina national football team captain Jorge Brown; psychiatrist and activist Dr. Alejandro Korn (after whom a neighboring town is named); and arguably the town's most famous residents, populist leaders Evita and Juan Perón, who purchased a weekend home in San Vicente in 1947.

[1] This is today the site of the 17 de Octubre Museum, to which Juan Perón's remains were relocated from La Chacarita Cemetery (Buenos Aires) on 17 October 2006.