Pará-katu

Paracatu lies in the northwestern interior of Minas Gerais, in the valley of the river from which it takes its name. Long before its gold became widely known, paths through the region joined the cattle country of the São Francisco to the mining districts and the roads leading west. The town preserves the legacy of a settlement shaped by both ranching and mining.

Colonial expeditions crossed the area from the late sixteenth century, and a settlement had begun to form by around 1730. In 1744 Felisberto Caldeira Brant and José Rodrigues Frois reported the discovery of the Paracatu mines to the Portuguese crown. The resulting gold workings drew people to the settlement of São Luiz e Sant’Ana das Minas do Paracatu. Churches built in the eighteenth century recall the community that grew around the mines.