After Lij Iyasu was captured, he was held for a while at Ambo, before being transferred to house arrest at Fiche. In the early 1730s, Mahtama Selassie Walda Mesqal, who had studied agriculture in France and Spain, started an agricultural station near the town. By 1933, Ambo had started to be a recreation place with the construction of some bath cabins with cisterns of concrete, and a couple of European-type hotels, as well as simple villas for the Emperor and important persons.