It was depopulated and demolished in the 1940s due to the formation of the Ribeirão das Lages Dam for the production and supply of electricity to the city of Rio de Janeiro.

[1] On February 16, 1990, the Ponte Bela and the remaining ruins of the Historical Complex of São João Marcos were provisionally registered by the State Institute of Cultural Heritage of the Rio de Janeiro.

[1] Between 1905 and 1907, the Canadian concessionaire The Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Co. leased and flooded the headquarters of São João Marcos for the construction of a hydroelectric plant, which led to the formation of the Ribeirão das Lajes Dam.

The ruins of this former municipality can be seen on the banks of the RJ-149 highway between the cities of Rio Claro and Mangaratiba, where an archaeological park has been built and maintained by Light S.A. in order to preserve its memory.

[6] The park, which is the first urban archaeological site in Brazil to be fully recovered by archaeologists, is an open-air museum in the interior of Rio de Janeiro that preserves the history of the Coffee Valley.