Bugallon Pangasinan

Bugallon town was formerly called "salasa" a Pangasinan word meaning "floor joist". The name came about, according to stories and legends with was told from father to son in incident as follows: A civilian Spaniard visited the place and finding a carpenter who was busy placing the floor joist of the house he was then constructing, asked him in Spanish the name of the place. The carpenter, apparently did not understand Spanish; suspected that the visitor was asking him what was he doing and answered him "salasa".

The Spaniards believed that the place be called Salasa so he noted down the name and later the place came to be called Salasa officially. Then Salasa became a municipality. The town site was then located near the bank of the Agno river, its visible natural norther boundary and which separates it from Lingayen.

Salasa now is an old town having been founded on January 24, 1719 and ruled for the first time by Capitan Buenaventura de Vera as Capitan Municipal the title then applied to the highest civil official of the town but below and subservient to the Parochial power. The last Capitan Municiapl was Don Norberto Espino who ruled in 1899 and the first Municipal President under the Civil Government was Don Adriano Abad.

Salasa enjoyed being the seat of the Municipal Government and remained to be so until the year 1916 when by resolution of the Municipal Council approved by the Provincial Board, because of the danger of inevitable erosion of the Agno river which was at that time rapidly moving toward the Presidencia Building, the town site was transferred to barrio Anagao the present seat of the town. It must have been the dictates of Providence for were it not for this timely transfer, the Presidensia and civil authority was moved to the new town site, the church and parochial power was left behind Salasa.

But it was soon found out that a new church was necessary to afford the people a place with which to commune with their Maker, they erected a church and brought along the old Patron Saint, St. Andrew. The church at Salasa now without Patron Saint, adopted Lady of Lourdes as their patron saint.

When the town site was transferred to its present site, it was, by a Legislative Act fathered and sponsored by the late Honorable Mauro Navarro then Representative for the 1st District of Pangasinan at that time, renamed the town "Bugallon" in honor of General Jose Torres Bugallon who was born in Salasa on January 12, 1869.