Its heyday was in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, following the construction of a railroad connecting large banana and coffee plantations with the shipping docks, all controlled by the International Railways of Central America and The Great White Fleet, both owned by the United Fruit Company.

In 1910, the United Fruit Company bought Quiriguá and all the land around the site for banana production; they set aside 75 acres or 30 hectares around the ceremonial center as an archaeological park, leaving an island of jungle among the plantations.

In 1883, then president general Justo Rufino Barrios had the plan to connect Guatemala City to a port on the Atlantic shore through a railroad in order to be able to move the coffee produced by his own haciendas and those of his liberal partners.

However, after the death of Barrios in the Battle of Chalchuapa in 1885, this plan was forgotten by his successor, general Manuel Lisandro Barillas.

524 declared Puerto Barrios to be a "Major port of the Republic" and ordered the customs offices previously based in Livingston to be relocated there.

[6] The Exposición Centroamericana (Central American Expo) was an industrial and cultural exposition that was to take place in Guatemala in 1897 and which was approved on 8 March 1894 by the National Assembly by Decree 253 by a suggestion made by president Reina Barrios.

Not only was the railroad vital for the Expo success, it was key to move merchandise and passengers between the Caribbean Sea and the new Port of Iztapa on the Pacific shore.

[7] Completing a transoceanic railway was a main objective of Reina Barrios' government, with a goal to attract international investors at a time when the Panama Canal was not built yet.

After Reina Barrios' death, civilian lawyer Manuel Estrada Cabrera was designated as president and inherited an enormous external debt to British banks, which forced him to search for an ally in the United States.

[8] Finally, in 1904, knowing the pro-American attitude of Estrada Cabrera, Minor Keith's partners,[a] began to get concession on railroads of both Guatemala and El Salvador, and in that year, International Railways of Central American (IRCA) was incorporated in New Jersey.

This situation remained as such until the government of Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán (1951-1954), who decided to build a highway and another port – Santo Tomas de Castilla – to compete with the American fruit company.

In the 21st century, Puerto Barrios remains an important hub for Dole and Fresh Del Monte Produce industries in addition to Chiquita, United Fruit Company's successor.

In order to establish the necessary physical infrastructure to make possible the "independent" and national capitalist development that could reduce the extreme dependence on the United States and break the American monopolies operating in the country, president Jacobo Árbenz and his government began the planning and construction of the Atlantic Highway, which was intended to compete with the monopoly on land transport exerted by the United Fruit Company, through one of its subsidiaries: the International Railways of Central America (IRCA), which had the concession since 1904, when it was granted by then president Manuel Estrada Cabrera.