Monteverde served as a Paradise Regained for American Quakers who founded a community here in 1851 after leaving the United States due to their objections to the draft.  They settled in a verdant region of the Guanacaste province, 1,500 meters (4,291 feet) above sea level. Birds, butterflies, monkeys, and an almost incalculably rich diversity were the rewards for the pioneering Quakers, who set up a cheese factory and to this day they produce cheese that is the pride of Costa Rica.  But the nearby Monteverde Cloud Forest reserve is the main draw from visitors all over the world in search of a nature at its most fertile and enchanting.