Henry Ford's American suburb in the Amazon, a ghost town for over 80 years, is getting a second chance as a protected heritage site. 99 years ago, Henry Ford had a dream for a company town by the Amazon rainforest. Fordlandia, a planned sister city to Dearborn for the far reaches of Brazil, was meant to serve as a company-controlled source of rubber for generations to come. It was abandoned less than 20 years later, and has since become famous as a ghost town.
According to the Associated Press, a Brazilian court has ruled that the city must be both restored and preserved as a site of historical significance. The ruling, a result of a case prosecuted by the Brazilian federal government against a local government that had allegedly left the city to languish, should result in the entire area being preserved as something like a neighborhood-sized museum exhibit.
The ruling is big news for enthusiasts of ghost towns, corporate settlements, and other oddities of the aftermath of the industrial revolution. Fordlandia is particularly notable because of the scale of the challenge: bringing an entire American suburb into a distant corner of a massive country a hemisphere away. That story will now be preserved, as will the stories of the workers in the town who objected to the restrictions that came with a company town and eventually built their own rival settlement for spurned employees unhappy with the city's mandated way of life.
Unfortunately for tourists hoping to add a quick day trip to Fordlandia onto their trips to Brazil once the restoration is complete, the site's remote location remains difficult to get to today. Be prepared to fly into a nearby city, ride a boat down the Amazon until you find the Tapajós tributary, and then ride a few hours further to the historic site.
Source: roadandtrack.com
