We stopped by here on our last trip to Santa Elena. Love it when churches leave their doors unlocked so you can stop by any time. Tried to find a little history on this church. Had heard it was one of the first buildings in Santa Elena. So far this is all I can find from the Fodor's website.
Monteverde and Santa Elena
The area's first residents were a handful of Costa Rican
families fleeing the rough-and-ready life of nearby gold-mining fields
during the 1940s. They were joined in the early 1950s by Quakers,
conscientious objectors from Alabama fleeing conscription into the
Korean War. A number of things drew them to Costa Rica: just a few years
earlier it had abolished its military, and the Monteverde area offered
good grazing. But it was the cloud forest that lay above their dairy
farms that soon attracted the attention of ecologists. Educators and
artisans followed, giving Monteverde and its "metropolis," the village
of Santa Elena, a mystique all their own. In any case, Monteverde looks
quite a bit different than it did when the first wave of Quakers
arrived. New hotels have sprouted up everywhere, traffic grips the
center of town, and a small shopping mall has gone up. A glut of rented
all-terrain vehicles contributes to the increasing din that disrupts
Monteverde's legendary peace and quiet. Some define this as progress.
Others lament the gradual chipping away at what makes one of Costa
Rica's most special areas so, well, special. We side with them. You can
still get away from it all up here, but you'll have to work harder at it
than you used to. In any case, you'll not lack for things to do if
seeing nature is a primary reason for your visit.
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