Urbiztondo : Gen. Antonio Urbiztondo

The living historical masterpiece of the town of Urbiztondo traced herself back to the year 1851 when it was founded by a pioneering man, Fructuso Vistro Sr. and a handful of enterprising and pioneering natives. The town Urbiztindo was christened after the surname of a Spanish Governor General of the Philippines, Gen. Antonio Urbiztondo, one time conqueror of the Moros of Jolo.

Before the year 1851 however, when the town was already called by its present name, the place was called Vistro in honor of the founder, Fructuso Vistro Sr., and which at that time of the sitio of Vistro was located in Galarin overlooking Aguing. As years rolled by the people were then happy and contented, thus the township of Vistro was changed into her present name, Urbiztondo, with a new location which is the present site of Urbiztondo.

History has it that before and after her founding, Urbiztondo shared a part of that kind and gracious endowment of nature, being gifted and imbued with the historically famed Agno River which flooded the town with its rich inundations thus making the soil fertile. The beauty of nature has been spelled in her name as Urbiztondo at that time was a thick forest where wild animals roamed and few people dared to venture.

The early Christian Missionaries and Spanish conquistadores arrived and they staked the plaza, after which they constructed the church and the presidencia. They later laid the poblacion with the principal streets at the center of the municipality together with the houses of the leading inhabitants, especially the Spaniards. Far beyond the outskirts of the poblacion, they mapped out the agricultural lands, the fishing areas, the grazing lands, and the communal forests. Thus, the town of Urbiztondo was built following the pattern issued by the Spanish Crown. #