Pucallpa was founded in the 1840s by Franciscan missionaries
who settled several families of the Shipibo-Conibo ethnic group. For several
decades it remained a small settlement as it was isolated from the rest of the
country by the Amazon Rainforest and the Andes mountain range. From the 1880s
through the 1920s a railway project to connect Pucallpa with the rest of the
country via the Ferrocarril Central Andino was started and dropped several time
until it was finally abandoned. Pucallpa's isolation finally ended in 1945 with
the completion of a highway to Lima through Tingo Maria. The highway allowed
the
