Before the arrival of the Europeans, Jinja was a small fishing village at the sources of the mighty River Nile, which was sought by several explorers in the 19th century. Ultimately it was John Hanning Speke who was the first European to discover this through various detours. With the arrival of British colonial rule in 1906, Jinja began to grow as a trading center and became an important crossing point into Kenya. When the railway between Kampala and Mombasa was built in the 20th century, many Indians and Europeans came to Jinja. Thanks to the railway and the Owen Falls dam, Jinja celebrated its heyday as the industrial capital of Uganda. Today, Jinja has a lively center and colonial history can still be experienced, especially in the suburbs. Over the years, tourism has grown enormously and has become an important source of income for the local population.