Opened in 1894, the first Portuguese hydroelectric power station was built on the left bank of Corgo river, in a place formerly occupied by ancestral water mills, of which
some archaeological evidence remains. The old path leading to those mills was reused in the late 19 th century to serve the power station, with some flights of granite stairs
added, and several flagged stretches of its original configuration, probably dating back to the early modern period, were thus preserved.