User:Ayaena/Obelisco de Lobato

The obelisk of Lobato is a monument located in the neighbourhood of Lobato, in the municipality of Salvador, in the Brazilian state of Bahia. Its objective is to be a historic landmark of the first oil wells discovered in Brazil.

History
The monument, of the architectural genre of obelisk, is located in Praça do Petróleo, at the end of Rua do Amparo, in the Lobato neighbourhood. It was inaugurated in 1940 in commemoration of the first oil wells drilled in the country and in honour of Getúlio Vargas, then president of Brazil and considered a booster of national oil prospecting.

The first signs of oil in Lobato officially occurred in 1939. The region was originally a farm. Evidence of oil emerged when villagers used dark oil to light lamps.

The newspapers of the time mention that the inauguration of the obelisk was attended by the president of the National Petroleum Council, General Horta Barbosa, who organized the visit of the president and his entourage, who inspected the recently opened oil wells on the site and other oil extraction structures.

Abandonment and mischaracterization
The urban occupation in the place became denser, provided by the state government itself in 1971, which housed families displaced by the rains who lived in nearby neighbourhoods. Then the remaining lands were subdivided and sold. This movement took place without, however, the installation of adequate infrastructure (such as water and sewage networks), making Lobato a favela community.

The obelisk was de-characterized or remodelled in relation to its original form, since the monument that is currently in Praça do Petróleo does not match photographs from the 1940s and 1980s, the monument appears formed by two overlapping stones, the upper one in the shape of a needle, typical of obelisks. Another similar photo appears in the 1982 ABI Bulletin. The shape of the monument in these two sources matches a third photograph of the moment of its construction, in 1940, published by the newspaper Diário da Noite, indicating that it was being installed between wells B-3 and B-4.