In the construction of the memory of the modern city, the industrial vestiges are an important part in the understanding of the modernities in Brazilian cities. The ICOMOS advisory body evaluation, when evaluating the candidature of São Luís do Maranhão as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHL, 1997), argues that the capital was "a relevant textile producer until the middle of the twenty century, giving the city an important role in national culture, represented by the work of its poets, writers and politicians and in material terms by its urban fabric of open spaces and housing". This article aims to understand the industrial modernities of Maranhão, addressing to how the economic cycles, urban development and the implementation of factories, from the turn of the nineteenth century to the twentieth, was influenced the urban transformations of São Luís, Brazil. Between the city center and the axes of urban expansion, from the Caminho Grande to the Anil River, the article highlight the emersion of bourgeois bungalows and working-class districts such as Filipinho district. In conclusion, the study presents a reflection of the urban development of industrial areas should be recognized as a Brazilian industrial heritage.