The town was founded in 1941 to lodge the, at that time, discovered Casabe oilfield's engineers and workers of Shell Colombia S.A.(SCSA) Subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell.

It was built in the usual Royal Dutch manner for camps in remote locations: with large comfortable modern houses, plenty of potable water, electricity, air conditioning, theater, social club with many amenities including olimpic pool, basquetball court, 18 hole golf course, bowling alley, large soccer field sewage system, schools, small hospital with many specialists, bilingual school, a small refinery to supply gasoline to domestic vehicles, excellent well maintained roadways, landing strip for small planes, radio and telephone communications, etc.

These were (and would be today) considered luxuries and attracted -as many enclave developments in remote areas do- a large number of settlers in the periphery of the oil production facilities.

The production facilities and camp installations were turned in to the government and were mostly ransacked and destroyed by thieves.

This latter were destined to house bona fide and opportunist settlers and thus the new town was founded.