Histórias e memórias de São Domingos/SC: no tempo das serrarias (1950-1986)

Abstract

The stories and memories about the sawmills founded in São Domingos-SC, between the 1950s and 1980s, are the object of this study. However, when studying the history and trajectory of sawmills, we realize that they are intertwined with the history of rural and the municipality of São Domingos, as intense logging activity led to the colonization of land and the urban area, with descendants of European immigrants and national settlers. The study uses as documentary support, mainly old photographs and the oral memory of a dozen people, supported by theoretical support around the concepts of memory, oral memory and photography. For a municipality that did not have writings on local history, orality was essential because it revealed ancient, almost forgotten or very private memories of the interviewees about sawmills, mills, houses, churches and leisure activities preserved in photographs in personal collections. The text is divided into three chapters: the first is more theoretical; the second of contextualization around logging in Western Santa Catarina since the beginning of the 20th century, including colonizing companies; and the third historicizing the sawmills and the settlement of São Domingos-SC. The economic activity of wood exploration and commercialization was an important tool for colonizers and migrants to create and minimally structure towns and cities in the first decades of their existence.