In the late 1940s, Heraldo de Campos Lima, a local physician, owned a farm in town of Raposos, where he raised livestock. It was close to Morro do Galo, where Saint John D’el Rey Mining had an arsenic processing plant, used to process an ore byproduct from which gold was extracted. Legend has it that Lima filed a lawsuit against the mining company claiming his animals were dying because the wind carried arsenic dust from the plant and contaminated his cattle pastures. Although the company denied the allegation, it accepted an exchange of land of the doctor’s choosing, which was called Morro do Chapéu because a nearby mountain peak was shaped like a hat.

At the beginning of the Juscelino  Kubitschek government (1956-1961), considered by many Brazilians as a type of Golden Age, the further development of the region−at this point served by the newly paved BR-3 highway−coupled with then-mayor Celso Melo Azevedo’s plans to use the water from the João Rodrigues Stream to supply Belo Horizonte−water that was also being used by the farm−forced Lima to come up with an alternative way to use the water as way to thwart what he perceived as the eminent expropriation of the land. So, he told his son, Eloy, to make arrangements for the immediate allotment of the Farm. And that’s how the “Quintas do Morro do Chapéu Neighborhood Unit” subdivision came into being in 1958, with an urban design drawn up by architect and university professor Silvio Vasconcelos

Then, through Decree 52,016, issued on November 17, 1963, Lima himself obtained the right to conduct mineral exploration of a section of land that overlapped with the subdivision.  Armed with the right to mine, he used it to negotiate with Manganoférrea Mineração and Extrativa Mineral. These two mining operations, which gave our members one headache after another, subsequently went on to become Mineração Prima (Miprisa).

Mutual understandings between the Executive Boards of Morro do Chapéu and Cosim, which at that time was a neighboring mining company, resulted in a draft protocol in 1970 containing the terms and conditions of the negotiations. Accordingly, Morro do Chapéu would “allow” the removal of approximately 360,000 tons of hematite and 270,000 tons of itabirite from our Belvedere, in exchange for funding works related to the collection, adduction, and reservoir storage of 250,000 liters of water per day. Subsequently, the catchment site was silted up and the system was shut down, with the plumbing being removed around 1981.

This was the grandiose name of the company that owned and operated gold mines in Nova Lima and Raposos. Based in London and trading its shares on the London Stock Exchange, its properties were enormous −practically all the lands now owned by MBR and Mineração Morro Velho belonged to Saint John.

In the late 1950s, the two towns were plagued with labor troubles. As a result of frequent strikes and union movements, gold production was down and costs were high. The company was in the red and limping towards a shutdown. As it was the towns’ number one employer, mine closure would have triggered a catastrophic social problem with national repercussion.

The Kubistchek Government then decided to intervene and, as was the custom at that time, subsidize the mine’s production, which by then had been fully acquired by Banco do Brasil at  prices that covered the high costs of production – all of which sent the stock prices plummeting. A savvy American investor, Leo Model, sized up the situation and saw an opportunity for big gains. He started buying up company shares on the London Stock Exchange until he held 55% of the capital.

Around the same time, the North American company Hanna Mining had established a presence in Brazil looking for iron ore. That’s when the very thing Model had half-expected happened: Saint John’s shares ended up being sold to Hanna. Since Hanna was interested in iron ore and not in the troubled gold mine, it soon began looking for a way to get rid of it. It then joined forces with businessman Fernando de Melo Viana in a way that proved to be mutually beneficial: Viana walked away with all the common shares (which were entitled to vote and fewer in number in relation to the preferred shares) whereas Hanna took the preferred shares (not entitled to vote).

Renamed Mineração Morro Velho, the new company inherited the gold operations and all the assets that went with it: mines, houses, land, processing plants, machines, and a hydroelectric generation system. Here, the story splits into two parts: that of Morro Velho with its gold mines and Hanna’s part with its iron mines.

For its part, Hanna started operations at Mina da Mutuca at the same time it expanded the survey work on the Águas Claras deposit (whose name was derived from the stream that runs through the region and for which Hanna had an ambitious exploration project). Despite popular opposition, then-President Castelo Branco intervened in order to make sure the Águas Claras Project was completed.

While Hanna was looking to develop its project, a Brazilian group, led by businessman Augusto Trajano de Azevedo Antunes, was studying the implementation of another iron ore project in the Brumadinho region through his own company, Jangada Indústria e Comércio (JINCO), which had been specifically set up for that purpose.

Antunes had his business origins in this area, too, dating back to the 1940s when, as a small miner, he explored the Pico Mine in Itabirito on a lease basis. He started his climb toward success with the exploration of manganese from Serra do Navio in Amapá through his company ICOMI.

In reality, however, there wasn’t room for the two iron ore projects and the government was called in to handle the issue. In 1964, Antunes met with President Castelo Branco and, together, they came up with a solution: the two companies would become one, with Antunes having the controlling interest. For this reason, the new mining company received the name Minerações Brasileiras Reunidas (MBR). The Águas Claras Project was then deployed and began operating in 1973. In the 1980s, Hanna’s shares were acquired by the Brazilian group and several Japanese companies, thus ending the presence of the American company.

Time passed and, in the early 1990s, Antunes transferred control of the holding company (Caemi) to his grandchildren, Guilherme and Mário Frering, and died in 1996 at the age of 90. Company management problems ended in the transfer of its control to Japanese partner Mitsui and then to Companhia Vale do Rio Doce.

When MBR decided to develop two big mines near Morro de Chapéu – the Tamanduá and the Capitão do Mato – Morro set up the Environmental Protection Committee, used it to mobilize its people and appeal to the general public, raising over US$ 100,000 to defend its rights and protect its future. In the end, it reached an unprecedented and beneficial agreement with the mining company.

At a General Meeting held in December 1995, the members of Morro do Chapéu approved an agreement with MBR that was endorsed by the Environmental Agency of the State of Minas Gerais at a Public Hearing held in Nova Lima on May 31, 1996.

All of these factors, along with the city’s urban expansion towards the South Zone and the inauguration of Alphavile (whose land also originally belonged to MBR) and other subdivisions, resulted in a substantial increase in the value of the Morro do Chapéu’s land. Its historic price of US$ 10,000 now reaches the range of US$ 350,000.

Today, Morro do Chapéu is synonymous with beauty, well-being, security, modernity, and comfort. The dedicated work of various administrations has transformed the lives of thousands of people who make Morro their place of leisure, rest, work, and housing.

The work of the current and previous boards has left a legacy for future generations that includes the fitness center, the gourmet area, the multipurpose complex, tennis courts, the water treatment station, Hole 19, the completion of the golf course − which today is benchmark in Minas Gerais −, plus the construction and equipment of the Operational Center, which houses the entire operational area, machinery, workshop, cafeteria, and human resources, offering an environment adapted to the needs of the community as well as the comfort of its employees.

With each management change, Morro do Chapéu Golf Club is renewed, proposing improvements, advances, modernization in people management, administrative management, maintenance, and security − in short, everything that contributes to the well-being of its members and enhancement of the community’s infrastructure.

Morro do Chapéu has received an enviable roster of famous people over the past fifty years. Politicians such as then-governors Magalhães Pinto, Bias Fortes, and the governor of the state of Guanabara, Carlos Lacerda, who visited Morro and honored the club. Poets and writers such as Vinícius de Morais, Hélio Pelegrino, Paulo Mendes Campos, Fernando Sabino, Otto Lara Rezende, and Ivo Pitanguy, M.D., friends of Dr. Eloy, have also enjoyed the community’s beauty and comfort on multiple occasions.

The fact that so many illustrious people have been to Morro do Chapéu is just another reason for its residents to be proud of belonging to a club founded by pioneers who, with a mixture of guts and determination, built one of the most beautiful gated communities in the country.