History and Local Culture of Quepos and Manuel Antonio
Quepos takes its name from the Quepo, an Indigenous people who lived on this coast before and during Spanish colonization. The modern town grew from a banana company settlement in the 1920s and 1930s, turned to oil palm after disease and floods hit the plantations in the 1950s, and in 1972 won Manuel Antonio National Park after local people fought to keep their beaches open. Today tourism, fishing and farming support the canton.
Quepos and Manuel Antonio in brief
| Topic | What to know |
|---|---|
| Named after | The Quepo (also written Quepoa), a Huetar people led in 1563 by the cacique Corrohore (Municipality of Quepos) |
| Canton | Quepos, province of Puntarenas. Called Aguirre from 1948 until 2015 |
| First written account | Letters by Juan Vázquez de Coronado, 1563 (University of Costa Rica study) |
| Modern town began | As a banana company settlement, 1920s–1930s |
| Main crop since the 1950s | African oil palm, first planted commercially here in 1943 (Clare, University of Costa Rica) |
| National park | Created in 1972 by Law 5100 after a local campaign; national park category from 1978 (SINAC) |
| Modern milestones | Coastal highway completed south to Barú in 2010; Marina Pez Vela opened in 2010 |
| Local celebrations | Festival del Mar (February) and the FERIMAR seafood fair on the malecón (July in 2026) |
| Words you will hear | Pura vida, soda, casado, feria |
Documented history and oral history
We’ve kept two kinds of history apart on this page. Documented history comes from published sources: the Municipality of Quepos, SINAC, academic research and journalism, each linked. Oral history and interpretation covers what people remember and how places are traditionally explained, and we say whose account it is. Where we couldn’t verify a story, we left it out.
We’re a hotel team, not historians. If you’re from Quepos and see something missing or wrong, we’d like to hear from you through our contact page.
The Quepo people
Documented
According to the Municipality of Quepos, the territory was home to a Huetar group known as the Quepo (also written Quepoa), led at the time of Spanish contact by a cacique (chief) named Corrohore. Conquest, disease and forced evangelization devastated the population. The Municipality’s history records that the Quepo were reduced to about ten people, who were moved elsewhere, leaving their territory empty.
The name survived. When the canton was renamed Quepos in 2015, it was explicitly to honor the Indigenous people who gave the area its name.
Interpretation
Inside the national park, at low tide beside Punta Catedral, a circle of stones called La Trampa (“the trap”) becomes visible. SINAC describes it as archaeological remains that, according to local history, Indigenous people used to trap turtles and fish. We share that as SINAC tells it; we haven’t found a published archaeological study to add more detail.
Corrohore and the first written portrait of Quepo
Spanish sailors and soldiers had already passed along this coast by the time anyone wrote about Quepo in detail. Gil González Dávila’s expedition travelled the Pacific side of Costa Rica in 1522 and 1523, meeting dozens of local chiefs on the way (Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture). The first close portrait of the Quepo, though, comes forty years later, in the letters of Juan Vázquez de Coronado, who led the Spanish conquest of Costa Rica in the early 1560s.
In early 1563 Coronado marched from the Central Valley down past the Pirrís river near Parrita and reached Quepo. Henry Vargas Benavides of the University of Costa Rica studied his two letters of that year (Filología y Lingüística, 2013), and they describe a prosperous, confident people:
- A generous welcome. Corrohore’s messengers met the Spaniards with maize, pinol (toasted corn flour) and fruit. The next day the cacique came himself with dozens of people carrying food, including tapir and wild pig.
- Gold eagles. Corrohore gave Coronado gold pieces in the shape of eagles, the kind of finely worked gold that today fills the cases of Costa Rica’s national museums.
- A well-fed land. Coronado listed what grew here: maize, beans, squash, cotton, cassava, zapote and many other fruits. He called the Quepo skilled, warlike and truthful, and praised the climate in both the dry and rainy seasons.
- A sister to rescue. Corrohore’s sister, Dulcehe, was being held captive by the Coctu, a fortified people some 25 leagues away along the coast. About a hundred of Corrohore’s warriors marched with the Spaniards, and Dulcehe and the other captives were freed.
Reading it today. These are the words of a conqueror writing to impress the Spanish Crown, so we read them with care. The alliance did not protect the Quepo for long: as the Municipality of Quepos records, conquest, disease and forced evangelization emptied their territory. Their name lives on in the town, the canton and the stone circle of La Trampa inside the national park. The coast Coronado admired is still here too, and the same forest still feeds the monkeys, toucans and scarlet macaws that visitors come to see. Many of them visit the trees around ECOTICA most days, so a slow coffee on a bungalow porch can feel like a window onto that older landscape.
Bananas, a railway and a new town (1920s–1950s)
Modern Quepos began with bananas. The Municipality of Quepos records these milestones:
- 1923: Agathon Lutz Stiequelle founded the Pirrís Farm Trading Company to grow bananas. By 1925 it had 217 hectares in production, with a small railway, port facilities and worker camps.
- By 1934: the United Fruit Company had taken over the operation through its subsidiary, the Compañía Bananera de Costa Rica. Work drew thousands of people from across Costa Rica and Central America.
- 1939: the first school (Escuela Claudio Pinto) opened and the pier was completed.
- 1940–1942: the company installed a power plant and a hospital, and electric service began.
- 21 April 1941: Quepos became a district.
The company built much of the town’s early infrastructure, and the rhythm of the plantations shaped daily life. Historians have also studied how the banana and later oil palm plantations changed the landscape of the whole Pacific coast; see the Redalyc paper in our sources.
Life on the banana line
The banana years left Quepos with more than a school, a pier and a hospital. They drew the map of the coast you drive through today. The Municipality of Quepos records that the Pirrís Farm Trading Company began exporting fruit in 1926, to San Francisco in California and to Vancouver in Canada. Shipping points grew up at Damas, Valeria and Quepos itself, at Boca Vieja, and the main settlements of the time were La Julieta, Damas, Paquita, Boca Vieja and El Cerro. Several of those names are still in daily use: Boca Vieja is a neighborhood of Quepos, and Damas and Paquita name the estuary and the river you cross on the way in from the north.
Once the United Fruit Company took over, Quepos became one of its new Pacific divisions, along with Golfito further south. Historian Patricia Clare (University of Costa Rica, Diálogos, 2005) describes plantations laid out with drainage and irrigation, built to escape the Panama disease that had ruined the company’s Caribbean farms. Here too the fungus spread fast. By 1947 the region’s reserves of fresh banana land were used up, and by 1956 banana exports from Quepos had stopped.
In between, the town took shape. The Municipality’s history notes electric streetlights in October 1942, and in 1943 the first church, the Mario Lamicq Salazar plaza and the Escuela Central de Boca Vieja. Workers came from all over Costa Rica and from neighboring countries, and many of the families who stayed after the company left are the grandparents of the guides, fishers, cooks and drivers you will meet today.
See it for yourself. The Damas estuary, once a banana port, is now one of the calmest outings in the area: a boat or kayak trip through mangrove channels, timed to the tide. It is a lovely half day, especially on a Tuesday when the park is closed. Planning it ahead of time? Book it with our concierge or read more on our things to do page.
Aguirre, then Quepos (1948 and 2015)
After the 1948 civil war, the territory became the sixth canton of Puntarenas province. It was named Aguirre, after Rolando Aguirre Lobo, who died in the fighting in 1948.
In February 2015, Costa Rica’s legislators changed the name of the canton from Aguirre to Quepos, in reference to the community’s origins and in honor of the Quepo people. Some older maps and documents still say Aguirre.
Floods, disease and oil palm
In 1954 and 1955, floods and Panama disease (a soil fungus that kills banana plants) devastated the plantations. The Municipality of Quepos records that the company switched to cacao, teak and oil palm, and that of more than 5,600 workers, fewer than 800 kept their jobs. It was a very hard time for the town.
Oil palm had already been trialled in the area. Costa Rica’s national palm growers’ chamber, CANAPALMA, dates oil palm cultivation in Costa Rica to the late 1940s, in the Quepos and Parrita regions. Costa Rica’s National Museum notes that African oil palm now dominates the farming landscape of the Pacific region where bananas once did. The palm plantations you pass on the coastal plain around Quepos are part of that story.
Other milestones
- 1964–1966: the Liceo de Quepos (secondary school) was founded.
- 1972: the port facilities passed to state control.
- 1974: construction began on the coastal highway (the Costanera).
Source for dates: Municipality of Quepos.
How oil palm took root around Quepos
Drive in along the coast from Parrita and you pass mile after mile of tall palms planted in neat rows, heavy bunches of orange-red fruit tucked under their fronds. This is the African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), a tree from West and Central Africa, and its story here started earlier than most people think.
Patricia Clare’s study of the Pacific plantations (University of Costa Rica, 2005) traces it step by step:
- 1943: the United Fruit Company began commercial planting in Quepos, at the same time as in Honduras, using palm varieties its scientists had gathered from Africa and tested in botanical gardens.
- 1951: a processing plant opened in Quepos. The oil travelled by barge to Puntarenas, then by railway tank car up to San José.
- 1962–1969: the company committed fully to palm oil and planted another 4,730 hectares around Quepos.
That is why the switch after the 1954–1955 floods and disease could happen so quickly: the palms were already in the ground. Costa Rica’s palm growers’ chamber, CANAPALMA, adds that the company later known as Palma Tica encouraged independent farmers and cooperatives to plant palm, which is how many local families came to own small plantations of their own. CANAPALMA counts two extraction plants in the Central Pacific, and the National Museum of Costa Rica notes that oil palm now dominates the farming landscape of the region where bananas once did.
On the road. The palm groves are not wild forest, but they are part of the living landscape. Herons work the drainage canals, and sharp-eyed travelers sometimes spot iguanas and birds of prey along the edges. For the real rainforest, with its sloths and all three monkey species, look to the national park and the protected hillsides of Manuel Antonio. ECOTICA’s own 10-acre reserve is one of them, and our wildlife at ECOTICA post shares what our guests see from the pool and the bungalow porches.
How Quepos won Manuel Antonio National Park (1968–1972)
Documented
SINAC’s own history of the park is short and direct: the park was born from community pressure against foreign owners who stopped local people from using the beaches, because they wanted to develop the area for tourism. Thanks to that pressure, the “Parque Recreativo Nacional Playas de Manuel Antonio” was created in 1972 by Law No. 5100.
Historian Patricia Fumero tells the fuller story in Semanario Universidad (2020). In her account:
- Local families and banana workers had long walked or driven to the beaches.
- In August 1968, the landowner at the time put up a gate blocking access.
- Students from the Liceo de Quepos repeatedly tore the gates down.
- In August 1972, an open town meeting (cabildo abierto) brought together the municipal council, student groups, community and women’s associations, a youth movement and the parish priest to demand a park.
- The law creating the park followed that year.
Oral history
Fumero’s article draws on interviews with Quepos residents, including Jetty Leiva and Arnaldo Moya Gutiérrez. It also names local figures remembered for organizing, such as Manuel Antonio Ramírez Muñoz (1940–1998), who is commemorated locally, and youth organizer Óscar Monge Maykall. These are community memories as recorded by the historian; read the full article (in Spanish) for their words in context.
Why this matters for visitors: the park you walk through was won by the people of Quepos for public use. Respecting its rules is part of respecting that. Plan your visit with our park visitor guide.
From recreation park to national park, and the name Manuel Antonio
Before the park, a community. Manuel Antonio was a place where people lived long before it was a protected area. The Municipality of Quepos records that the first road to Manuel Antonio was opened with a tractor in 1949, and that the Escuela de Manuel Antonio, a primary school, was built in 1951. Historian Patricia Fumero (Semanario Universidad, 2020) adds that families from Cartago began settling the area in the 1940s.
Who owned the beaches. In Fumero’s account, the beachfront between Playa Espadilla Sur and Playa Manuel Antonio was first held by an American owner, Noel Thomas Langham, and later bought by a Franco-Canadian, Arthur Aimé Bergeron, who enforced his claim to private property. That is the background to the gates the Quepos students kept tearing down.
How the park grew up. Law 5100 of 1972 created a recreation park, run at first by the Ministry of Agriculture. SINAC’s management plan for the park lists the steps that followed:
- 20 January 1978: Executive Decree 7901-MAG raised it to the category of national park.
- 15 February 1980: Executive Decree 11148-MAG enlarged it to include islands offshore.
- 27 December 1982: Law 6794 confirmed its status as a national park.
Those islands are why the park reaches so far out to sea today, and why a boat trip is the best way to see the seabird colonies. Our ocean and marine life guide covers what lives around them, and our concierge can book a boat trip for your dates.
Where does the name come from? Honestly, nobody knows for certain. Many visitors hear stories about a Spanish soldier or settler called Manuel Antonio, but we have not found a reliable source for any of them, so we leave them aside. Fumero records a local tradition linked to Manuel Antonio Ramírez Muñoz (1940–1998), from one of the first families of the area, whose memorial plaque says he gave “name and renown” to the place he loved. She is careful to add that there is no certainty the park was named for him, and that the origin of the name still awaits proper research. If your family knows the story, we would love to hear it.
Walking the trails with this history in mind makes a park morning richer. A naturalist guide adds the living layer, pointing out sloths and squirrel monkeys you would walk straight past. Planning ahead? See our guided park walks.
From park to travel destination
After the park was created and the coastal road was built, visitors kept coming. SINAC now describes Manuel Antonio as the protected area that receives the most national and international visitors in the country. Hotels, restaurants and tour companies spread along the road between Quepos and the park, and Quepos added a modern marina, Marina Pez Vela, for sport fishing and boat trips.
Growth brings pressure: traffic on the single road, crowding on busy days, and wildlife that learns to raid bags when visitors feed it. SINAC’s daily visitor limit and strict food rules in the park are responses to that. Travelers can help by booking tickets ahead, visiting early, using the bus, and never feeding animals.
Roads, telephones and a marina: how the coast opened up
For much of the twentieth century, Quepos was easier to reach by sea than by land. The Municipality of Quepos lists the milestones that slowly connected it to the rest of the country: the road through Puriscal opened in 1969, the first public telephones arrived in 1970, and a 200-line telephone exchange began working in 1973. Work on the coastal highway started in 1974.
The final piece came much later. On 29 April 2010 the government inaugurated the Quepos–Barú section of the Costanera Sur, about 42 km of new road that, as La Nación reported, joined the whole Pacific corridor of Costa Rica into a single highway. Driving south to Dominical and the waterfalls inland became a short, easy trip, which is why our waterfalls and day trips guide can suggest outings that once took a full expedition.
The same year, the waterfront changed too. Marina Pez Vela, named for the sailfish that made Quepos famous among anglers, opened in 2010 after Costa Rica passed a marina law in 1999. The Tico Times describes how it grew into a hub of restaurants, shops and tour operators, and how a public waterfront, the Paseo de los Quepeños, brought the seafront back to life for local families. Today sport fishing charters and many boat trips leave from here. Read our sport fishing guide to see why anglers come from all over the world.
Hotels grew along the ridge road at the same pace, many of them small and family-run. ECOTICA belongs to that story: the property was formerly the Byblos Hotel and reopened as ECOTICA Boutique Hotel & Spa in 2023, on its own 10-acre private rainforest reserve a few minutes from the park. Howler monkeys, white-faced capuchins, squirrel monkeys, sloths, toucans and a nesting pair of scarlet macaws share the grounds with our guests most days. Coming soon? Check dates and rates or ask our concierge to help plan your days.
Local culture today, and how to be a good guest
Quepos is a working town. People here work in tourism, fishing, farming and trade. A few simple ways to take part respectfully:
- Shop at the feria. The farmers market by the malecón (Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings) is where local growers, fishers and cooks sell directly.
- Eat at a soda. The small family-run diners in Quepos serve everyday Costa Rican food.
- Learn a few words of Spanish. “Buenos días”, “gracias” and “con permiso” go a long way.
- Hire local guides, and tip them for good work.
- Ask before photographing people, their homes or their children.
- Go slowly on the hill road. People walk to work and school along it.
For activities around town, see things to do and what’s where.
Pura vida, sodas, fiestas and football
Pura vida
You will hear it within an hour of landing: as hello, as goodbye, as “all good” and as “thank you”. Linguist Víctor Sánchez Corrales, writing for the University of Costa Rica, traces the phrase to a 1956 Mexican film, Pura vida, starring the comedian Clavillazo. It played in Costa Rican cinemas, the phrase stuck, and Costa Ricans made it their own. He calls it a “lexical emigrant” that found its true home here. Say it back with a smile and you will be understood everywhere.
Sodas and the casado
A soda is a small, usually family-run diner, and it is the heart of everyday eating in Quepos. Breakfast is often gallo pinto, rice and beans fried together, with eggs and sweet plantain. At lunch, order a casado: rice, beans, salad, plantain and a main of fish, chicken or meat on one generous plate. Fresh ceviche is easy to find in a fishing town. Our food and before-you-go tips page has more dishes to try and how to order them.
Festivals by the sea
- Festival del Mar. Costa Rica’s Ministry of Culture lists the Festival del Mar Quepos as a long-standing local celebration held in February, organized by the Asociación Festival del Mar Quepos. It returned after a ten-year pause that followed the 1999 edition.
- FERIMAR. A seafood fair on the Quepos malecón organized by INCOPESCA, the national fisheries institute, and the Municipality. In 2026 it ran from 3 to 13 July, with fish and shellfish sold straight from local fishers, cooking demonstrations, concerts and family activities (Ministry of Agriculture).
Dates change from year to year. If your trip falls near either one, ask our concierge what is on that week.
Football
Football is Costa Rica’s great shared passion. In most towns the plaza is the football pitch, and on late afternoons you will see pick-up games on fields and beaches all along the coast. When the national team plays, whole towns gather around a screen. Join in at YOLO Social, ECOTICA’s bar and restaurant, where big screens show the matches and there is live music every night. See YOLO Social and our guide to live music in Manuel Antonio.
The feria
The Friday and Saturday farmers market by the malecón, mentioned above, is the best single place to feel the rhythm of Quepos: growers, fishers and home cooks, mango and rambutan in season, cheese, bread and fresh juice. Go early, bring small bills in colones and a reusable bag, then stroll the seafront.
Quepos and Manuel Antonio: a timeline
Five centuries on one page, from the first Spanish ships to the hotel you may be staying in. Each date comes from the source named beside it.
| Year | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1522–1523 | Gil González Dávila’s expedition travels the Pacific coast of Costa Rica | Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture |
| 1563 | Juan Vázquez de Coronado reaches Quepo and allies with the cacique Corrohore; Dulcehe is rescued | Vargas, University of Costa Rica |
| 1923 | Pirrís Farm Trading Company founded to grow bananas | Municipality of Quepos |
| 1926 | First banana exports, to San Francisco and Vancouver | Municipality of Quepos |
| 1930–1934 | United Fruit Company takes over through the Compañía Bananera de Costa Rica | Municipality of Quepos |
| 1939 | First pier at Boca Vieja; Escuela Claudio Pinto opens | Municipality of Quepos |
| 21 April 1941 | Quepos becomes a district | Municipality of Quepos |
| 1943 | Commercial oil palm planting begins; first church and town plaza | Clare; Municipality of Quepos |
| 1948 | Canton of Aguirre created | Municipality of Quepos |
| 1949 | First road to Manuel Antonio, opened by tractor | Municipality of Quepos |
| 1951 | Palm oil plant opens in Quepos; Escuela de Manuel Antonio built | Clare; Municipality of Quepos |
| 1954–1956 | Floods and Panama disease; banana exports end | Municipality of Quepos; Clare |
| 1962–1969 | 4,730 more hectares of oil palm planted around Quepos | Clare |
| 1965 | Liceo de Quepos opens | Municipality of Quepos |
| 1968–1972 | Local campaign to reopen the beaches | Fumero, Semanario Universidad |
| 1972 | Law 5100 creates the Manuel Antonio recreation park; port passes to the state | SINAC; Municipality of Quepos |
| 1974 | Work begins on the coastal highway | Municipality of Quepos |
| 1978 | Manuel Antonio becomes a national park | SINAC management plan |
| 1980 | Park enlarged to include islands | SINAC management plan |
| 1982 | Law 6794 ratifies the national park | SINAC management plan |
| 2010 | Costanera Sur completed to Barú; Marina Pez Vela opens | La Nación; Tico Times |
| 2015 | Canton renamed Quepos | CRHoy |
| 2023 | ECOTICA Boutique Hotel & Spa opens in the former Byblos Hotel | ECOTICA |
Where to learn more
- Municipality of Quepos: history of the canton (Spanish)
- Patricia Fumero, “Las luchas por el Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio (1968–1972)” (Spanish)
- SINAC: Manuel Antonio National Park, history
- Research paper on banana and oil palm on the Pacific coast (Redalyc, PDF, Spanish)
Back to the Manuel Antonio & Quepos Travel Guide.
History and culture of Quepos: questions and answers
Where does the name Quepos come from?
From the Quepo (or Quepoa), a Huetar people who lived on this coast when the Spanish arrived. In 1563 they were led by the cacique Corrohore, and in 2015 the canton took the name Quepos to honor them.
Why is it called Manuel Antonio?
The origin is uncertain. Historian Patricia Fumero records a local tradition linked to Manuel Antonio Ramírez Muñoz (1940–1998), but notes there is no certainty the park was named for him and that the question still needs research.
When was Manuel Antonio National Park created?
Law 5100 created it as a recreation park in 1972, after a local campaign for beach access. It became a national park in 1978, gained offshore islands in 1980 and was ratified by Law 6794 in 1982 (SINAC). Plan your visit with our park guide.
What do we know about the Quepo people?
Juan Vázquez de Coronado’s 1563 letters describe a prosperous people who grew maize, beans, squash, cotton, cassava and fruit, worked gold, and allied with the Spanish to free Corrohore’s sister Dulcehe. Conquest and disease later emptied their territory.
Was Quepos a banana town?
Yes. Bananas were first exported from here in 1926, and the United Fruit Company ran Quepos as one of its Pacific divisions until disease and floods ended banana exports in the mid-1950s.
Why are there so many palm trees on the drive to Manuel Antonio?
They are African oil palms. The United Fruit Company began planting them commercially in Quepos in 1943, and they replaced bananas as the main crop of the coastal plain.
What does pura vida mean, and where does it come from?
It works as hello, goodbye, thanks and “all good”. According to linguist Víctor Sánchez Corrales (University of Costa Rica), the phrase came from the 1956 Mexican film Pura vida and Costa Ricans adopted it as their own.
Are there festivals in Quepos?
The Festival del Mar Quepos is held in February (Ministry of Culture), and the FERIMAR seafood fair fills the malecón in July (3 to 13 July in 2026). Dates change, so ask our concierge what is on during your stay.
What is a soda, and what should I order?
A soda is a small family-run diner. Try gallo pinto at breakfast and a casado at lunch. More dishes are on our food and tips page.
Why do some maps say Aguirre instead of Quepos?
The canton was called Aguirre from 1948 to 2015, after Rolando Aguirre Lobo. Older maps and documents still use the name.
Keep exploring
History makes the landscape easier to read. Walk the trails the people of Quepos won with our national park guide, find your way around town with what’s where in Quepos and Manuel Antonio, taste the coast with our food and tips page, and plan your days with our sample itineraries. Everything else is in the Manuel Antonio travel guide, and our concierge is happy to book tours before you arrive.
Arrive with everything ready
Come for the stories of the old port town and the people who fought to save the park, and let us arrange everything else before you arrive:
- Plan your excursions: walk the national park that local families campaigned to protect with a naturalist guide, or trade history for boat trips, zip lines and rafting
- Book Jungle Spa: after a day of village lanes and old stories, unwind with massages, couples treatments, facials and body rituals
- Arrange your arrival: follow the road to the coast in a private transfer from San José, US$195 each way for up to 5 people
- Ask our concierge: dinner plans in town, celebrations and any special request along the way
- Reserve your stay: see dates and rates for our bungalows and suites, your home base for discovering the region’s past
Sources for our history and culture guide
- Municipalidad de Quepos – Historia del cantón (the canton’s own account of its origins)
- Patricia Fumero, “Las luchas por el Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio (1968-1972)”, Semanario Universidad, 2 Sept 2020 – on the local campaign that led to the park
- SINAC – Manuel Antonio National Park (official page in English on the protected area today)
- SINAC – Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio (official Spanish page on the park as visitors find it now)
- CRHoy – Diputados cambian el nombre del cantón de Aguirre al de Quepos (how Aguirre canton became Quepos)
Photos: Costa Rica Drone Tours, Mario Spencer, Luis Kuthe, Magda Ehlers, Pau Delgado, Snappr / Pexels.
