On the east end of Wilde, there is a large coastal area with a sandy beach linked to the Río de la Plata, from where it is possible to see (on clear days) the coast of Uruguay.

In 1619, Don Melchor Maciel acquired the lands of Gaitán and created a larger manor with grounds for cattle, also developing a residence by the large shores of the Rio de la Plata.

A neighboring landowner, Federico Gattermeyer, did likewise and in 1908 donated a large trust to the Port Railway for the creation of a station in Villa Domínico that was opened in 1909.

They were started at the same time, but the Southern was made in sections, while the Central was planned as a great iron road to open almost four hundred miles (640 km) of sparsely populated, rich land.

A decree issued in August 1863 authorized the construction of the Southern, based on a proposal by a group of people that included the already mentioned wealthy Irish merchant Thomas Armstrong and George Drabble, a pioneer in railways and in the frozen-meat trade and one-time president of the Bank of London and River Plate who had arrived in Buenos Aires in 1848, Alfred Lumb, Henry Green, John Fair and Henry Harrat, merchants and landowners who were anxious to invest in a promising enterprise and to increase the value of their property by means of the new communications.

Lumb had the concession and the support of shareholders, among whose names were Thomas Duguid, the Fair family, British Consul Frank Parish (later the Southern's chairman who, with Baring, bought into the Central) and David Robertson.

Their ship, the Scotia, had run aground on the Rio de la Plata estuary, and was stuck for several days before it floated free and was assisted into the port of Buenos Aires by a tugboat on December 24, 1903.