Qualla: São Mateus, Espírito Santo

São Mateus, Espírito Santo: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Moeção, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before the first cars and before the first highway, the commerce of São Mateus moved by river. The São Mateus River carried timber downstream to a port lined with stone mansions, and the port loaded coffee and lumber onto ships bound for Europe. Then, in 1938, the first road to Linhares opened, and within a generation the ships stopped coming. The mansions emptied. What happened next is one of the odder chapters in Brazilian urban history, and it is the reason the Port of São Mateus still stands today, not as a working waterfront but as a municipal heritage site on the banks of a river that no longer ships anything.

Image: Moeção | CC BY-SA 4.0

São Mateus, Espírito Santo: Four Centuries on the Cricaré

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eu mesma., Public domain. São Mateus sits on what used to be called the Baixada do Cricaré, the lowland of the Cricaré River, which is what the São Mateus River was called before the colonists renamed it. The settlement was founded in 1544 and is listed among Brazil's oldest continuously inhabited cities....

Image: Eu mesma. | Public domain

São Mateus, Espírito Santo: The Port That Emptied

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jsilvares, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Port of São Mateus was the commercial heart of the municipality for most of three centuries. From the late eighteenth century onward, stone masonry mansions went up along the riverbank, mostly warehouses and the homes of merchant families, with internal walls finished in plas...

Image: Jsilvares | CC BY-SA 4.0

São Mateus, Espírito Santo: The Turtles of Guriri

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thiagonegris, CC BY-SA 4.0. Guriri is the main beach, a few kilometers from downtown São Mateus. The shore there formed when Commander Reginaldo Gomes da Cunha, brother of the Baron of Aymorés, ordered the opening of an artificial channel to drain the Suruaca Lagoon for cattle grazing - an act of nineteenth...

Image: Thiagonegris | CC BY-SA 4.0

São Mateus, Espírito Santo: Waterfalls and Warnings

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Moeção, Public domain. Three waterfalls sit along the São Mateus River upstream of the city. The most famous is Cachoeira do Inferno, the Falls of Hell, at kilometer 47 of the highway to Nova Venécia. It is technically a rapid rather than a waterfall - over 1,000 meters of white water, mislabeled on th...

Image: Moeção | Public domain

São Mateus, Espírito Santo: Lira Mateense and the September Feast

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thiagonegris, CC BY-SA 4.0. São Mateus was the first city in Espírito Santo to have a theater, and its cultural institutions reflect that early head start. The Lira Mateense, founded on September 21, 1909, is simultaneously an orchestra and a marching band, one of the two principal musical groups in the sta...

Image: Thiagonegris | CC BY-SA 4.0