Ta'if was still little more than a medieval city when the Saudis took control of it. However, they later stared to modernize the city. Saudi Arabia's first public power generator was set up in Ta'if in the late 1940s. In terms of building roads to the city, in 1965 the then King Faisal inaugurated the mountain highway between Mecca and Ta'if, and in 1974 the 400 mile Ta'if-Abha-Jizan highway was started.