 It was founded in 1872 by Jesús Angel, a settler from Bernal.Garita has a post office with ZIP code 88421, which opened on January 19, 1907; the post office used the name Variadero intermittently until the 1920s.The community's two names both come from Spanish terms; Variadero derives from "variar", meaning "to change", due to the changes in the river's course, while Garita means "lookout" or "government building".