Her keel was laid by Thomson on 12 February 1897; the company changed its name to Clydebank Engineering & Shipbuilding Co. in April 1897 and completed her under this name on 4 November 1897.

As tensions between Spain and the United States grew in early 1898, Plutón was part of the Spanish Navy's 1st Squadron, commanded by Vice Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete.

Ordered by neutral Portugal in accordance with international law to leave São Vicente within 24 hours of the declaration of war, Plutón and the rest of Cervera's squadron departed on 29 April 1898, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico.

France was neutral and would not supply coal, so the Spanish squadron—minus Terror, which stayed behind at Fort-de-France with engine trouble—departed on 12 May 1898 for Dutch-owned Curaçao, where Cervera expected to meet a collier.

Plutón, Vizacaya, and unprotected cruiser Reina Mercedes all opened fire, and Merrimac quickly sank in a position that did not block the entrance.

Some of her men joined others from the fleet in a Naval Brigade to fight against a U.S. Army overland drive toward Santiago de Cuba.

By the beginning of July 1898, that drive threatened to capture Santiago de Cuba, and Cervera decided that his squadron's only hope was to try to escape into the open sea by running the blockade.

Too badly damaged to continue, Plutón ran herself aground at 1045 on the beach just west of Cabanas Bay, a total loss.