Pergamino's main church and city hall were both completed in 1930. Following a decade of prosperity, however, the great depression led to the ruin of the majority of the area's small landholders. The city soon began to recover, and celebrated the opening of the Municipal Fine Arts Museum in 1936, for instance. A devastating flood in 1939 led to construction of levees and canals along the Pergamino River. Growing to nearly 50,000 people by 1947, the city's first large manufacturing establishments began to operate at this time. Pergamino's agricultural sector, however, was strained by the creation of a national export grain purchaser, the IAPI, by President Juan Perón in 1946; although Pergamino benefited from IAPI investment in irrigation and other infrastructure works, the low prices the agency paid local growers also led to the bankruptcy of number. The dissolution of the IAPI following Perón's overthrow in 1955 and the 1956 establishment of the National Agricultural Laboratory (INTA) in Pergamino helped revitalize the sector in the area and nationally.