Nuclei and Museum Places of Emigration

The Industrial Nucleus

At the moment, the City Council is contacting the administration of the Fafe Cloth and Spinning Company, the former Cloth and Spinning Company of Ferro founded by José Ribeiro Vieira de Castro on 15^th December 1886. The City Council is willing to create an industrial museum nucleus there.

This Nucleus will showthe industrial initiatives of the emigrants, such as the Bugio Factiry founded in 1873 by the “Brazilian” José Florêncio Soares, the Beverages Factory founded by the “Brazilian” Eustáquio Sequeira Mendes (1918) and the Cloth and Spinning Factory of Rio Ferro (1930) in Armil.

In 1909, The Fafe Cloth and Spinning Factory (the Ferro Factory) had 450 employees and, in 1927, it worked with electric power coming from three hydrolic turbins owned by the factory. In 1914, a canteen started working and, in 1926, an infant garden and a nursery school with 200 beds, a primary school with 400 children in 1947, for 1,300 employees working with 18,000 spindles and 780 mechanical weaving looms.

The Bugio Textile Factory, founded in by José Florêncio Soares in 1873, had 250 employees in 1909 and 11,000 spindles (including 8,400 for spinning and 3,300 for twisting) and 92 mechanical weaving looms in 1947.

The Rio Ferro Textile Factory, located in Armil, founded on 9^th March 1930 by the “Brazilian” João Martins Guimarães’s descendants, and called Vasconcelos & Cy, started working with ten weaving looms powered with steam energy and, by 1931, with electric power from its own electric plant.

The Fafe Beverages and Fizzy Drinks Factory was created in 1918 in Santo Ovídio by Eustáquio Sequeira Mendes.

These industries were together the most important industrial initiatives of the nineteenth century emigrants and they attracted workers and specialized staff to Fafe; another direct consequence of this industrial growth was the construction of houses for the workers of Ferro and São José.