In 1888, the company named Martínez, Silva y Cía founded a fish processing factory under the name of La Oriental. With a wide commercial and productive vision but with very little money and staff, the factory began to operate everyday and managed to be productive in spite of the distances separating it from the great cities, especially from Montevideo.
But such was the richness of the fish dwelling in this area of the sea –both in quality and quantity- that the venue soon produced thousands of canned products they kept in oil.
Partly legend and partly real, it is said that a dozen fishermen could catch a ton of fish in only one day of good fishing. But due to reserved matters, the then Uruguayan government resolved not to renew the fishing license it had granted in favor of this company. La Oriental had to accept the command and it closed its doors. But in only one year of existence, it set an incredible record never broken by any other local fish processing company.
In those days, not only did the ancient dwellers of Valizas dedicate their lives to fishing, but they also did some rural tasks in general and, many of them, would work at the sea lion exploitation company operating in Cabo Polonio.
They did not even imagine that years later, tourism would turn into their largest source of income on these inhospitable sands. Today, tourism and fishing are still living in an idyll, the same that witnessed the birth of this small coquettish settlement surrounded by fishermen and the sea.
