User:Explorecr

This is the account of Explorecr to familiarize you with the history of the area.

A few hundred years ago, a man by the name of Jacobo traveled through this area and loved it so much that he decided to give it his name. Over the years, true to Costa Rican custom of shortening names or dropping some letters of the words, it eventually became known as Jaco.

Until the 1880's the area surrounding Playa Jaco was uninhabited and covered in dense forest. Many of the species of plants and animals that once thrived in this area can now only be found in Carara National Park or on the hill at the south end of the beach, informally known as Miros' Mountain. When the area was settled, houses were built of wood and thatched with the then abundant royal palm.

In 1890, one year after the 'campesinos', or peasants, were finally given the right to vote alongside their richer counterparts, (women and blacks, incidentally, were not allowed to vote until 1949) two families, Diaz Gomez and Diaz Camareno emigrated from Chiriqui province in Panama and settled in the vicinity of Jaco. Eventually, tne families ,including Gonzalez, Fallas Vasquez and Villalobos moved to Jaco to establish farms and ranches. The Madrigal brothers, Arturo and Santana, came from Miramar, a small village in the mountains east of Puntarenas. They settled on the south end of the beach and were the original owners of Miro's Mountain and the land that now houses the Jaco Fiesta Hotel. Many of the descendants of these families still live and work in Jaco. Pastor Diaz, for whom the main street is named and who was a well loved and respected member of the community, was the last member of the original founding families when he died in 1993 at the age of one hundred and thirteen.