Brazilians and Portuguese worked on the construction and had a difficult and dangerous time climbing the Sugar Loaf hill to bring the first four tons of material and equipment up.
Since there was no helicopter back then (1909-12), highly trained mountaineers climbed Sugar Loaf (396 m) with the material on their backs! Once they reached the Sugar Loaf peak, spikes were driven into the rock to be used in lifting the crane that would bring the rest of the material up. Then, a manual service cable car was installed to bring more material and workers up. It was a daring project.
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