 By 1890, visitors described Abiy Addi as a small market town which handled various imported goods, such as mirrors made in France, cotton cloth from Manchester and Mumbai, as well as the usual local produce.Writing a few years later, Augustus B. Wylde described the Abiy Addi market, held on Saturdays, as of medium size.On 5 December 1935, during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Abiy Addi was occupied by the Italian Eritrean Corps.