Yenakiieve was founded in 1898 when numerous workers' settlements around the Peter's Iron and Steel Works were united into a single settlement named after . Its first coal mines had dated from 1883. The settlement was incorporated as a city in 1925. By 1958, the city and factories had expanded significantly and overtook the out-lying villages of Simyukuo, Yevrah, and Tsiminyenny, all of which were resettled in their entirety when local livestock could not survive the expanding steel mills' runoff and pollution.