connection with the markets in the capital and center of the state was made. After some abandoned projects, on January 10, 1879, the Board of the Land and Population Commission approved a plan by Luiz Manoel de Azevedo for the urban center, idealized according to the Roman grid, where a layout of straight streets cross each other perpendicularly forming a chessboard. By this time, several houses and businesses had been built in the center, creating a low-rise settlement, but with the implementation of the official route many of these early buildings were demolished. Soon the so-called Rua Grande (English: Big Street), today Júlio de Castilhos Avenue, appeared as the spine of the emerging settlement. By 1884 the straightening of the main streets had been completed. In this same year the colony was transformed into a district of São Sebastião do Caí. The administrative change was unpopular. The settlers had to travel almost 60 km to the municipal seat to pay their taxes and communicate with the authorities, losing a week of work due to the very poor roads. After long negotiations with the state government and demonstrations of having grown enough to be able to govern itself, the district was emancipated in 1890, becoming the Village of Santa Teresa de Caxias, placed under the direction of a Governing Board. The board organized the new municipality, serving as an executive as well as a legislative body, granting the first laws: a Posture Code, the Internal Rules and the Organic Law. These laws defined the rules of public administration and delimited the scope of powers, but when it comes to the Historic Center the board should be remembered for establishing the first norms for urbanization and building in the center. At this time, almost all buildings were made of wood, with few examples in masonry. Even large industrial pavilions were built in wood, with the araucaria being the most used, as it was abundant in the region at the time. The paving of the center would take a long time. Until Colonel José Pena de Moraes took office, the center would have had dirt roads with gravel, and only a few streets with paved sidewalks. The main focus in the first decades was the organization of the Dante Square and Rua Grande, where works for the flattening and lowering of the land began, a process delayed and complicated by the existence of