History of Londrina

Londrina’s Cathedral is located in the town center:













The typical wooden houses (with a tile roofs) characteristic of Paraná’s early settlement period:













The theater Ouro Verde:












The former train station, now housing a museum of the history of Londrina:

History of Londrina, Paraná

The city of Londrina has a unique history. 80 years ago Londrina did not even exist. In the 1920´s, The Brazilian Plantations, Ltd, in London, England, was developing the area which today is the northern part of our state, Paraná. That company from London, England, was building a railroad from São Paulo to the Brazilian frontier (Foz de Iguaçu, PR). On August 21, 1929, the surveying crew building the railroad arrived in the area known as Três Bocas (now in Londrina) and engineer Dr. Alexandre Razgulaeff put down the first marker. When the stock market crashed in 1929, construction on the railroad came to a screeching halt sometime there after. The city of Londrina sprang up where the tracks ended. Small farm plots were sold and people started streaming into the area.

"Londrina" means "little London." Londrina was named after the town where the company founders were from. Dr. João Domingues Sampaio gave the name Londrina to this town. He was one of the directors of the "Land Company of Northern Paraná" which was part of the Brazilian Plantations, Ltd. Craig Smith is considered one of the founders of the city. He led the team of surveyors and decided that the train tracks would come through this area and would have a depot here.