The Peculiar Truth about the US Town in the Amazon Rainforest
Published in
3 min readJun 7, 2022
- 1928: Two ships filled with supplies sailed up a tributary of the Amazon River. The boats docked at a newly constructed town that resembled an American suburb and looked entirely out of place in the rainforest.
- The town was named after the man who had envisioned it, Henry Ford.
- The famous automaker had dominated the car industry for over 20 years, and he wanted to expand his business empire to include making tires. Since Great Britain had secured rubber trees in other parts of the world, Ford sought his own plantation. He settled on a territory deep in the Amazon Rainforest.
- To keep his American employees happy in that distant and remote jungle setting, though, meant building them an American-style town.
- Fordlandia was created.
- Construction commenced in 1926 but was slowed when workers suffered from jungle-related maladies like malaria and yellow fever.
- The only access in or out of the town was via the riverways.
- But when the town was completed, Fordlandia featured Midwestern-style row houses with green lawns, gardens, sidewalks, fire hydrants, and paved streets, none of which could be found anywhere else in the rainforest.
- The town also boasted a hospital, a…
