In the early 1960s, while the country experienced a period of serious institutional crises, Lavras suffered a series of attacks made by a pyromaniac, in which several historical houses were consumed by the flames. In this context, in 1962 the local authorities decided the Municipal Theatre demolition, sealing the end of civic organizations and city's cultural decay. This decline was exacerbated in 1963 by the newspaper "A Gazeta" disappearance – the only printed weekly at the time – and almost closing of the Agricultural School of Lavras, which was federalized. Other signs of visible social degradation were the collapse of the Rosary church walls in 1965, rebuilt only in 1970, and the end of the tramway in 1967.