Inside Henry Ford’s abandoned jungle town deep in the Amazon

The ambitious project of Fordlândia came at a cost of many lives – and despite efforts to protect the historic settlement, some think it may disappear in a matter of decades, finds Terrence McCoy

Sunrise in Fordlândia, Brazil (Rafael Vilela/Washington Post)

When he was a young man, Luiz Magno Ribeiro felt nothing but pride in his city. It was, he believed, the most miraculous town in Brazil, a place of many firsts. The first settlement deep in the Amazon rainforest to have running water and electricity. The first to treat patients in a modern hospital. The first to build a swimming pool, a cinema, street lamps – an oasis of civilisation in a remote jungle: Fordlândia. Where Henry Ford tried to defeat the Amazon and was instead defeated.

But one recent morning, as he set out to inspect the community, it wasn’t awe that the 49-year-old felt. It was frustration and grievance.

Despite all of Magno’s efforts, despite the community’s backing, despite the help of federal attorneys and a recent order by a judge, the remarkable history of Ford’s conquest to harvest Amazon rubber was being lost, historic building by historic building. And the roughly 2,000 people still here, many of them impoverished descendants of Ford workers, were being forgotten – again.