Educational institutions contribute to both social transformation and emancipation, as well as to the spread and legitimization of a dominant ideology, as they are immersed in a certain reality, significantly influencing and being influenced by it. They are not just a place where interests, values, culture and ideology are reproduced, but they are also able to influence the ideology, values, science, politics and culture in the society they are in (RODRIGUES, 1988, p. 57). The aspiration in “Escola Normal Regional Carmela Dutra”, created in 1947 in the, back then, Territory of Guaporé, was “meeting the demand for teachers due to the expansion of education in the territory in its process of establishment and growth” and mitigating the problem of high rate of illiteracy in the region. In this privileged locus for teacher formation, it was “essential that education could prepare teachers to assume their responsibilities, spark the patriotic spirit, sow citizenship to strengthen the Nation, making it powerful”. By 1950, the duration of the course for teachers was four years, similarly to the old junior high school in Brazil, with the addition of pedagogical courses to qualify tutors, giving them technical knowledge enough for educating children. The “Pedagogical Course of the School of Teacher Education of Guaporé”, that would qualify teachers for child education, was only created in 1952 and established two years later, graduating its first class in 1956, at high school level. It worked as both daytime and boarding school with students from the capital, Porto Velho, and from Guajará-Mirim, Abunã, Costa Marques, among other cities. The elementary schools Homero Kang Tourinho, Duque de Caxias, Escola Samaritana worked as practicing schools, and for physical education and sports activities an Olympic-like stadium was built with resources from the Ministry of Education. Some hints are enough to understand that the process of professional qualification developed by the school had as an aim the legitimization of the dominant culture and less the autonomy of the students, shaping, not really empowering them. Therefore, this work had as an objective to study the way the institution was organized, pursuing “a historical meaning in the social context of that time, as well as its influence in the present day” (OLIVEIRA & GATTI, 2002), from primary sources produced by the institution itself, the press at that time and the bibliographic production of local chroniclers. What was the source of the demand and what factors led to its establishment? What concepts underpinned the selection of contents, practices, rules and the use of the physical space? We also consider the academic contribution of Brandão (2002), Rodrigues (1988), Freire (2010; 2005), and Hall (2011), among others, for offering the possibility of understanding the constitution process of educational institutions and teacher formation courses. As preliminary results, the research showed the importance of the institution and the teacher formation course for qualifying professionals in the Territory of Guaporé, though its colonizing nature rather than its empowering one was patent.