The town enjoyed a considerable uplift through the opening of the railroad towards Tbilisi in 1899. The vicinity of the town was the site of the Battle of Karakilisa in May 1918, when General Tovmas Nazarbekian's outnumbered troops, led by Garegin Nzhdeh successfully defended the region against the invading Turkish Army, pushing them back just few days after the crucial Armenian victory in the Battle of Sardarapat, thus allowing the Republic of Armenia to come into existence. On the North side of the Spitak-Vanadzor highway, about West of the city, there is a little shrine in the ruins of a church, the site of a planned monument to that battle.