Butajira was founded between 1926 when a missionary Pere Azaiz found nothing there, and 1935 when a German ethnographic expedition found a town laid out in straight lines and square shapes to serve as the administrative center of the Gurage people. After Ras Desta Damtew was taken prisoner on 24 February 1937 in the small village of Eya he was brought to Butajira where, after a perfunctory trial, he was executed that evening. British patrols, acting as part of the East African Campaign, found that arbegnoch groups had dispersed the local Italian positions, leading to both the British and Ethiopian flags being raised over the town on 21 April 1941.[1]