This cover from Brazil depicts 2 stamps celebrating the
Historic Town of Ouro Preto. Ouro Preto, formerly Vila Rica, is a city in and former capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, a former colonial mining town located in the Serra do Espinhaço mountains and designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980 because of its outstanding Baroque Portuguese colonial architecture. Ouro Preto is located in one of the main areas of the Brazilian Gold Rush. Officially, 800 tons of gold were sent to Portugal in the eighteenth century, not to mention what was circulated in an illegal manner, nor what remained in the colony, such as gold used in the ornamentation of the churches. The municipality became the most populous city of Latin America, counting on about 40 thousand people in 1730 and, decades after, 80 thousand.
