Brazilian court orders government to restore Henry Ford's failed Amazon town Fordlândia

A federal judge in Pará, Brazil, has ordered the government to restore Fordlândia, the failed company town built by Henry Ford in the Amazon rainforest in the 1920s. The ruling gives four state agencies 90 days to inspect all structures and 180 days to produce a restoration plan, with daily fines for non-compliance. The lawsuit was filed by Brazil's federal prosecutors in 2015 after IPHAN, the national heritage institute, failed to protect the site. IPHAN's board voted against listing Fordlândia in 2024 without public explanation, but the court overruled this, citing a constitutional duty to protect heritage. Ford built the town to secure rubber for his tires, imposing American lifestyles, a vegetarian diet, and a liquor ban. Workers rioted in 1930 over cafeteria changes, and rubber trees planted in rows succumbed to blight. No rubber ever reached Ford tires, and the company sold the site in 1945 for a fraction of its $20 million investment. Today, a few thousand residents live in decaying bungalows, many without running water. The court also ordered the property agency to register buildings as federal assets and determine land titles, potentially enabling tourism as envisioned in a 2010 plan. The site currently has no plaques, guidebooks, or visitor centers.