Volta Redonda - History

History

In 1744, the first tamers named the curious curve of the Paraíba do Sul river of "Volta Redonda". Big farms were installed in the region and some farm names are the names of some districts nowadays.

Between the years of 1860 and 1870, the navigation through the Paraíba do Sul river had its golden period between the cities of Resende and Barra do Piraí and at the same time the railroad D. Pedro II was built in Barra do Piraí and Barra Mansa.

With these facts, in 1875, the village of Santo Antonio de Volta Redonda started to have great impulse, but with the freedom of slaves in 1888, the decay of the Vale do Paraíba became visible, destroying the agriculture, that would not recover more satisfactorily.

This situation would be reverted in 1941, when the cycle of industrialization of Volta Redonda began. Chosen as local for installation of the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) steel mill in the middle of World War II, it marked the base of Brazilian industrialization. Laborers from diverse regions of the country came to Volta Redonda to work in the mill. When it opened in 1946, it was the first steel mill in South America.

A heavily subsidized symbol of national pride, the Volta Redonda mill embodied the import substitution industrial policies that prevailed in Latin American economies from World War II until the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. Since its 1993 privatization, however, the mill—now known as the Presidente Vargas Steelworks—has transcended its dirigiste origins to become one of the world's most efficient steel production facilities - due to this large procution of steel and minerals, the city is globally nicknamed "Cidade do Aço" (literal Portuguese for "The City of Steel").