In 1915 Major Cândido Rondon of the Corps of Military Engineers, who was directing the construction of a telegraph line from Cuiabá in neighbouring Mato Grosso state to Santo Antonio do Madeira near Porto Velho, reported that the region was inhabited by rubber tappers and plantation workers in São Pedro do Muqui.

[3] Settlement activity intensified after 1970, creating conflicts with purported landowner José Milton de Andrade Rios, who accused new arrivals of being squatters invading his land.

With new settlers continuing to arrive, the village grew, and INCRA Rondônia created the Leitão sector as an extension of the Ouro Preto Integrated Colonization Project to regulate settlement activity.

[3] By mid-1972, the village population had reached 800, and buses linking Cuiabá in Mato Grosso to Porto Velho in Rondônia would stop at the townsite, now having the status of a sub-district.

By plebiscite the residents eventually chose "Presidente Médici", a name which Rondônia territorial governor Teodorico Gahyva confirmed as official on July 30, 1973.