A couple of years later, the management building of the Société du Djebel-Djérissa was constructed at the center of a square, with all the city's streets converging toward it.

Early in the war, the storage and embarkation facilities at La Goulette were heavily damaged, and wrecks near the wharf made it inaccessible to large vessels.

[5][6] During World War II, Djerissa was one of the headquarters of the Allied corps, headed by French commander General Louis Koeltz.

[7] In addition to the local labor force, the miners and staff recruited were mainly poor European populations (French, with Corsicans considered separately, Italians, Spaniards, and Maltese) as well as Maghrebis (Algerians, Moroccans, and Libyans).

The company built the town with a village center around the Villa Morin, which included a post office, a dispensary, a pharmacy, a general store, a canteen, and the Catholic Church of Sainte-Barbe.

This was followed by urbanization without any land-use planning (for example, the development of the Ali Ben Khalifa neighborhood from 1956 to 1975) and the formation of spontaneous housing on the outskirts of the colonial town, caused by rural migration following independence.