The mountains around Monteverde were not empty when the Quakers arrived. Archaeological evidence points to Clovis-culture settlements farming and hunting in the region as early as 3000 BC. Between 500 BC and 300 CE, agriculture intensified and simple chiefdom societies replaced smaller tribal settlements. Jade was the prized material of these villages -- carved into objects that defined their culture. By 300 to 800 CE, complex chiefdoms had emerged, with cemeteries, public squares, and goldsmiths. Around 1300 AD, populations declined, possibly driven by increased volcanic activity from nearby Arenal. After the Spanish arrived in 1502, indigenous populations across Costa Rica fell from an estimated 400,000 to 80,000 within fifty years -- devastated by enslavement, forced labor, and Old World diseases against which they had no immunity.

The Quakers and pacifists who arrived in the early 1950s were not the first outsiders. During the first decades of the twentieth century, Creole populations had come in small numbers, many working the Guacimal gold mines or providing goods and services to mining communities. But the Quakers transformed the area. They built a Meeting house that doubled as a schoolroom and general store -- it became Monteverde Friends School, still operating today. They produced garlic, beef, flax, and cheese, taking advantage of infrastructure improvements in the 1960s to export dairy products across the country. When overgrazing depleted the pastures in the 1970s, the community pivoted to coffee. By the mid-1990s, 210 families were contributing milk to the local dairy factory, generating $5.2 million in revenue, and Monteverde's coffee farmers were earning some of the highest prices in the world.

National Geographic called the Monteverde Cloud Forest "the jewel in the crown of cloud forest reserves." The numbers justify the superlative. The 10,500-hectare Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve harbors 500 species of orchids -- more than anywhere else on the planet -- with 34 discovered only recently. Fifty-eight amphibian species have been documented, including the now-extinct golden toad, once endemic to Monteverde and nowhere else. The resplendent quetzal, one of Central America's most elusive birds, resides here seasonally, drawing birders from around the world. The reserve's 134 mammal species include jaguars, three species of primates, six species of felines, and fifty-eight species of bats. To the east lies the Children's Eternal Rainforest, at 22,000 hectares the largest preserve in the area -- funded by schoolchildren from around the world.

Costa Ricans voted Monteverde one of the country's Seven Wonders in 2007, alongside Isla del Coco, Tortuguero, Arenal Volcano, Cerro Chiripo, Rio Celeste, and Poas Volcano. An estimated 250,000 tourists now visit annually, with about 70,000 entering the cloud forest reserve itself. The influx has drawn Costa Ricans from other towns and cities, transforming what was once an isolated farming community. Roads are partially paved now, and English-Spanish bilingualism is widespread thanks to the Quaker legacy and three bilingual schools. In 2021, Monteverde achieved a milestone that had been years in the making: the Legislative Assembly approved its separation from Puntarenas canton, and President Carlos Alvarado Quesada signed it into law. Monteverde elected its first municipal government in 2024. The Quakers' Green Mountain had become its own place, officially -- though it had been one, in every way that mattered, for decades.