Princess Sparkles 6 Yr. Old POA Mare

According to an unconfirmed local story, the town was named by one Colonel Samuel Chapman, whose family owned 6,000 acres (24 km 2) of land in Charles County. The Colonel traveled to South America with his son George, who had contracted tuberculosis, in search of a cure. In his travels, the Colonel had apparently encountered the Río de la Plata, which flows through Argentina and Uruguay, thus naming a portion of his property "La Plata." In the 1870s, a section of the Pennsylvania Railroad had been constructed through the town of La Plata, leading to its 1888 incorporation. The La Plata courthouse had been built soon after the 1819 Port Tobacco courthouse caught fire in 1895 under suspicious circumstances. In 1904, the historic Christ Episcopal Church in Port Tobacco, which dates to 1683 and was reconstructed in 1884, was dismantled and its stones were then transported by oxen and cart to its current lot in La Plata.