A different scene
In the beginning, land ownership and processing of coffee were all controlled by small, Costa Rican farmers and producers. The result is what gives Meseta Central and southern highlands a different outlook: small coffee farms dominate the landscape, rather than large, one-owner haciendas, common to other Latin American countries.
In many ways, this particular situation turned benefits over to the hands of all sectors of society. The children of coffee growers left for Europe to study. In 1843, their experience and professional background helped turn Casa de Enseñanza de Santo Tomás College into the first national university. Coffee earnings and taxation financed roads and public buildings. The first National Bank was built in 1858. In 1869, the constitution proclaimed elementary education obligatory and free for both sexes.
Education and culture played an important role in the history of this nation, and it was due to coffee earnings that the system began to develop into a self-standing example of leadership and peace. But the picture has had sad traces of power struggles and rivalries. Prosperity blindfolded the coffee elite, and many of their political actions damaged the road to democracy. Nevertheless, the level of education helped solve such struggles, and stopped them from turning into everlasting civil wars, and deep cycles of militarism, as it happened in other Central American nations.
Inspired by Europe's economic and cultural progress, the coffee elite voted a tax on coffee exports to finance construction of a theater. The National Theater was officially inaugurated in October 21st, 1897, by the French Opera Company who came to Costa Rica just for the occasion, and it still hosts some of the country's most important cultural events.
