A Brazilian court has ordered federal and local authorities to restore and preserve Fordlandia, the ambitious Amazonian city founded nearly a century ago by U.S. industrialist Henry Ford .

Prosecutors have hailed the decision as a significant milestone in heritage protection for the site.

Now a ghost town and a district of the city of Aveiro, Fordlandia was established in 1927 in the northern state of Pará by the Ford Motor Company. It was conceived as a rubber-tapping metropolis to secure a steady supply of natural rubber for tires, designed to resemble an idyllic American suburb.

Once the third-largest settlement in the Amazon , the venture failed as disease ravaged rubber tree plantations, leading to its abandonment.…