The history of Coronel Fabriciano, a Brazilian municipality in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais, began at the end of the 16th century. Expeditions followed the so-called Doce River Hinterlands ("Sertões do Rio Doce") in search of precious metals, however, the settlement of the region was forbidden at the beginning of the XVII century, to avoid smuggling of the gold extracted in the Diamantina region.
The settlement was released in 1755 and during the 19th century, the flow of troopers ("tropeiros") led to the formation of the settlement of Santo Antônio de Piracicaba in the region of the current Melo Viana and the subsequent creation of the district in 1923. On the same occasion, the town started to be served by the Vitória-Minas Railway (EFVM), and the Calado Station was built, around which the urban center that corresponds to Fabriciano's center was established. In 1936, the Belgo-Mineira Steelworks Company (ArcelorMittal) was installed, and remained there until the 1960s, strengthening the formation of an urban nucleus which culminated in the emancipation of Coronel Fabriciano on December 27, 1948.
In the 1940s and 1950s, respectively, Coronel Fabriciano hosted the industrial complexes of Acesita and Usiminas, which were essential for the development of the city. But, with the political emancipation of Timóteo and Ipatinga, in 1964, the companies were incorporated into their respective municipalities. The population growth associated with the presence of industries required the emergence of neighborhoods and housing developments. Furthermore, the maintenance of the steelmaking activity contributed to the formation of the Vale do Aço metropolitan area, ("Steel Valley") which corresponds to one of the largest urban centers in the state.
Early colonization
The clearing of the region of the current Coronel Fabriciano municipality began in the second half of the 16th century. Expeditions such as that of Fernandes Tourinho, in 1572, followed through the so-called "Doce River hinterlands" ("Sertão do Rio Doce") in search of precious metals. The place was on an outflow route for the precious stones extracted in the central region of Minas Gerais, which linked the Estrada Real in Diamantina to the coast of Espírito Santo. However, the settlement and the opening of new trails through the Doce River Valley region were forbidden by the Portuguese crown in the first half of the 17th century, to avoid gold smuggling through the Doce River and its tributaries, such as the Piracicaba. Intended to keep outsiders away, it was said to be land with dense vegetation and poisonous animals, with the danger of the Botocudo Indians.
The settlement was liberated in 1755 after Minas Gerais went through a decline in gold production. On this same occasion, a road was opened connecting Vila Rica (now Ouro Preto, then the capital of the Province of Minas Gerais) to Cuieté, to transport the gold extracted in the region of the current municipality of Conselheiro Pena, whose metal would run out after 1780. The passage, however, continued to be used after the building of a prison in Cuieté, which received convicts for crimes along the Estrada Real. The first colonists settled in the interior of the Rio Doce Valley, associated with the transportation flow by the rivers since the existence of this road. Around 1800, Francisco Rodrigues Franco settled in the area of Fabriciano. On the same occasion, José Assis de Vasconcelos, originally from Santana do Alfié, in São Domingos do Prata, took possession of land near the current industrial core of Usiminas.
In 1825, a road was opened by Guido Marlière connecting Antônio Dias to the Santo Antônio River, near Naque, crossing the Serra dos Cocais through which later would appear the settlement of São José dos Cocais. Thus, the flow of tropeiros between the settlements, intensified throughout the 19th century, who crossed the region from Antônio Dias, Ferros, Santana do Paraíso, Mesquita, and Joanésia, led to the formation of a small settlement, later called Santo Antônio do Gambá, also known as Santo Antônio de Piracicaba, in the current Melo Viana neighborhood. The establishment of small landowners led to the development of the settlement as a function of farming and cattle raising.Caminhos Gerais Magazine, n. 21, pp. 17.Caminhos Gerais Magazine, n. 35, pp. 17. Coming from Leopoldina, on September 11, 1831, Francisco de Paula e Silva settled with his family and numerous slaves after receiving three sesmariasPortuguese system, adapted in Brazil, which regulated the distribution of land for agricultural production. from Emperor Pedro II: Alegre, Limoeiro, and Timóteo. Francisco settled on the right bank of the Piracicaba River, having started the weeding of the area to facilitate trade between the neighboring population centers. He developed agriculture in the region and his farm served as a stopping point for travelers.
Soon after, Francisco Romão - a fugitive from justice-seeking refuge - became responsible for the transportation of people and goods through the Piracicaba, Doce, and Santo Antônio rivers, connecting São Domingos do Prata, Antônio Dias, Mesquita, and Joanésia. At the mouth of the Caladão Stream, there was a movement associated with the presence of a small port, where the goods transported by road embarked towards neighboring localities through the Piracicaba River. The place became known as Barra do Calado, due to the disposition between the two hydrographic courses, and the term "calado" ("quiet") is a likely reference to the silence needed to avoid drawing attention from Indians hiding in that area, still in the beginning of the 19th century.
In 1919, João Teixeira Benevides brought from Ferros the first teacher (his niece, Maria de Lourdes de Jesus) and donated land for the first school, the first cemetery, and the church of Santo Antônio de Piracicaba, observing at that time a growth of commerce and the formation of the urban nucleus. João Teixeira arrived in the village newly married to Guilhermina Ribeiro da Silva, both from Ferros, attracted by the projects of the lease of the Vitória-Minas Railway (EFVM).
Settlement development Originally, the town was part of the village of Itabira, created in 1833 when it was dismembered from Caeté and elevated to city in 1848, and in 1911 the settlement became part of Antônio Dias. In the 1920s, after the resumption of the EFVM, a population growth was observed due to the establishment of workers in Barra do Calado. Dozens of tents were improvised to shelter the workers,Caminhos Gerais Magazine, n. 35, pp. 22. many of them northeasterners from Bahia and Sergipe, but other immigrants were also present. The Manoel Domingos neighborhood, for example, began to be populated in the 1910s, with the arrival of Portuguese immigrant Manoel Domingues (after whom the current neighborhood is named), who also participated in the building of the railroad. A large part of the residents who populated that area in the following years were descendants of his 28 children. Coronel Silvino Pereira, from Sergipe, was responsible for the arrival of several of the outsiders and later became a businessman and politician.
By state law No. 823 of September 7, 1923, the district was created under the name of Melo Viana, a reference to the former senator, interior secretary, and vice-president of the republic Fernando de Melo Viana. The headquarters were in Santo Antônio de Piracicaba. The Calado Station was inaugurated on June 9, 1924. Before the inauguration, the terminal remained abandoned for almost two years, due to an unexpected deviation of the railway track after crossing the current Cariru neighborhood in Ipatinga. Manoel Camilo da Fonseca was appointed as the first district justice of the peace, electing his first clerk of the peace, João Batista Pereira. The first civil registrations made were the baptism of the twin girls Duraci de Distaneta, daughters of the couple Antônio Viana, and the marriage of the Syrian Maron Abibi to Geralda Honrata de Souza.
At the same time, around the station, the first houses in Calado, the region where Coronel Fabriciano's center is, began to be built. The predominance was of small shacks, and only in 1928 was built, besides the station, the first house covered with ceramic tiles and rooming; the Sobrado dos Pereira, which still exists on the corner of the current Pedro Nolasco and Coronel Silvino Pereira streets, being also the first commercial establishment in the city. In the same year, Rotildino Avelino was elected the first councilman representing Calado, being present in the locality since 1925 as a tailor and merchant, becoming after some time a landowner and coal producer. At the time, the dead were buried in the cemetery near Santo Antônio Church, at the district's headquarters, where JK Square is located today, or even dumped on the margins of the railroad. Silvino Pereira installed the first public lighting service, supplied by a thermoelectric power plant, also providing energy to coffee, cotton, and rice processing machines in the settlement cut by the streets of Cima (formerly Seca, now Duque de Caxias) and Baixo (now Silvino Pereira and Pedro Nolasco).Caminhos Gerais Magazine, n. 35, pp. 24.
In 1928, the Rural Mista School was founded, which was the first regular school, directed by teacher Mariana Roque Pires. The first church in Calado was built in 1929, dedicated to Saint Sebastian in honor of the residents' devotion. On March 1, 1930, the first elections were held, presided by Eugênio dos Santos, with Getúlio Vargas (Liberal Alliance) receiving 336 votes and Júlio Prestes (PRP) 144 votes for president of the republic. Due to the distance traveled by the then clerk José Zacarias da Silva Roque to the railroad terminal, the Melo Viana notary's office was transferred to Calado in 1933, changing the district headquarters to the region of the current city center.
Economic Expansion
Configuration of the urban nucleus In February 1936, an office of the Companhia Siderúrgica Belgo-Mineira (now ArcelorMittal Aços Longos) was set up in Calado, seeking to centralize the exploration of wood and the production of charcoal from the Doce River Valley to feed the furnaces of its plants in João Monlevade. The company, through the local superintendent, engineer Joaquim Gomes da Silveira Neto, was responsible for a great impulse to the city as an organized urban center since several streets and avenues were created and buildings erected, in particular the first masonry houses. Also in this period, the Siderúrgica Hospital (now Doutor José Maria Morais Hospital) was built, due to the high incidence of yellow fever and other tropical diseases.
Besides the shipments of wood and coal and the unloading of machinery destined for Belgo's industrial enterprise, the movement of the Calado Station was restricted to the arrival of smaller orders and foodstuffs. The lumber sector became the main economic source throughout the 1930s, also benefiting internal commercial activity, which later began to attract consumers from neighboring towns through the four daily train stops.Caminhos Gerais Magazine, n. 35, pp. 25. By state decree-law no. 88 of 1938, Melo Viana was renamed Coronel Fabriciano, losing its space to the creation of the district of Timóteo on December 17 of the same year. Its name is a tribute to Fabriciano Felisberto Carvalho de Brito, who was one of the most influential politicians of Antônio Dias, having received from the Emperor of Brazil Pedro II, on August 25, 1888, the title of Lieutenant-Colonel of the National Guard for the District of Piracicaba.Caminhos Gerais Magazine, n. 18, pp. 7. He was one of the responsible for the creation of the town of Antônio Dias (1911) and the District of Melo Viana (1923) through his son, Carvalho de Brito, deputy and member of the commission responsible for the administrative division of Minas Gerais.