[1] The area has been populated already since the prehistoric times, although not to be identified as the place Pteleum in ancient Elis that belonged to Nestor in the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad.

[5] The medieval settlement was located on the northern part of the Bay, near the modern village of Pigadi, and is attested for the first time in 1192, when "wine from Pteleos" (οἶνος Πτελεατικός) is mentioned as being traded in Constantinople.

[5] After the Fourth Crusade (1204), the area passed under the control of the Frankish Kingdom of Thessalonica, but in 1218 it was recovered by the Despotate of Epirus.

In 1350 it was plundered by the Catalans and their Albanian allies, but remained in Venetian hands as an isolated outpost on the mainland until 1470, when it was surrendered to the Ottoman Empire following the loss of Negroponte.

[5] Parts of the ruined medieval fortress survive to this day, southwest of Pigadi: a square donjon, a cistern, foundations of houses and a town wall, and the so-called Alatopyrgos ("salt tower"), a watchtower on the coast.