Panama Canal History by Zeke

Here I have included some of the history of the Panama Canal. I have written this so you can understand and appreciate the true ingenuity and brilliance of this enormous undertaking.

As early as 1534 surveys have been carried out to see if it was possible to connect the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic. With the discovery of gold in California the Panama Railway was built in 1849 to speed people and goods on there way from America to Europe. The Panama Railway meant high value goods did not have to risk rounding the treacherous Cape Horn.

The railway still carries people and goods across the isthmus

 

The French start digging

On January 1 1881 the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps who had previously built the Suez Canal started work on the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal would be under half the length of the Suez and like the Suez at sea level.

When the Panama Canal was first proposed a man be name of Codan de Lepoly (I think that’s how you spell it) said that a sea level canal as proposed would be impossible. He also said that canal with locks would work. He talked of the disease and rain that is common in Central America. No one listened and work began to make a sea level canal.

Men pored in by the thousands to dig the canal. Ferdinand sold it to the men like a war, he talked of adventure and being a hero. The first think that had to be done was to clear the forest where the canal would pass. The mighty rain forest trees were huge and had to cut down and carted away. Men encountered hazards each day; there were snakes that could kill you and saw-grass that shredded your skin. 

 

French excavator at work

When digging started it was mostly by hand; steam shovels were at that stage too clumsy and big. Men lived in appalling conditions and due to constant rain men often got foot diseases. The rain meant that the sides of the canal were constantly falling in on its self and had to be re dug.

Disease was what killed fastest it was carried be mosquitoes which grew best in still artificial puddles. When the French went bankrupt in 1889 an estimated twenty two thousand people had died and the budget had far exceeded the original estimations. Also the French only completed on fifth of the digging need for a canal with locks let alone a sea-level canal..

A company consisting of a few thousand people was made to keep the canal in salable condition, the asking price was US$109 000 000.

The Americans 

In 1902 the American senate decided to buy the French Panama Canal if negotiations went well with Colombia who at that point controlled Panama. Negotiations did not go well but word reached the senate that if America was willing to lend money and men Panama would separate from Colombia. All went well and no blood was spilt but it was a bit of a dirty deal. A new agreement was made with Panama, US took control of the Panama Canal site on May the fourth 1904 and work commenced.

President Theodore Roosevelt sitting on a steam shovel at the Panama Canal, 1906

 

John Findlay Wallace was the first engineer to be placed in charge of the canal but after a year he resigned and John Frank Stevens took over. Stevens who had previously built the Great Northern Railroad made new accommodation built new waste management in the towns and made clean drinking water available to all. Yet disease continued to be a problem, Colonel William C. Gorgas was appointed chief sanitation officer – he understood the connection between mosquitoes and yellow fever and malaria. With in two years nearly all disease had been stopped.

Steven was the project leader of the canal, under him came three men. The first was Major William L. Sibert, who was in charge of the Atlantic side of the canal. He was responsible for construction of the massive breakwater at the entrance to the canal, the Gatun locks and their 5.6 km approach channel and the Gatun dam. The second man was Sydney B. Williamson he was responsible for the Pacific 4.8 km breakwater in Panama Bay, the approach channel to the locks, and the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks and their associated dams and reservoirs. our third and final man was Major David du Bose Gaillard of the United States Army Corps of Engineers,he was assigned to one of the most difficult parts, excavating the Gaillard Cut through the continental divide.

Digging the trench

 

 

The canal was completed in 1914 and under the original estimated cost. The canal cost the Americans $375 000 000 roughly equivalent to $8 600 000 00 now. Above, the first ship to transit the canal.

Expansion and competition

In August 2012 Panama decided to invest in a total of $ 5.25 billion in a new set of locks to move the growing number of super tankers across the Isthmus of Panama. The project includes deepening and widening access channels, raising the capacity of the lake and of coarse building the new locks. The Panamanian’s have been forced to do this because of a sea level canal being dug in Nicaragua. The canal in Nicaragua will pose a major threat to Panama because revenues gathered from the canal make up a key part of the economy.

New locks under construction

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