A Brief History of How Panama Canal Was Built

 

Image Courtesy: Panacanal

In 1904 the United States commenced building a canal across a 50-mile stretch of the Panama isthmus following the failure of a French construction team in the 1880s.

Chief engineer John Stevens devised innovative techniques and spurred the crucial redesign from a sea-level to a lock canal as the project was helped by the elimination of disease-carrying mosquitoes.

Lt. Col. George Washington Goethals who was his successor, stepped up to oversaw the building of the dams and locks as well as for an excavation efforts of a stubborn mountain range.

The world-famous Panama Canal which was opened in 1914 got its oversight transferred from the U.S. to Panama in 1999.

Linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans:

When In 1500s King Charles I of Spain tapped his regional governor to survey a route along the Chagres River which dates back to the time from when the idea of creating a water passage across the isthmus of Panama to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans began.

Although the idea remained tantalizing as a potential shortcut from Europe to eastern Asia but the realization of such a route across the mountainous, jungle terrain was deemed impossible at the time.

The first country to attempt the task was ultimately France. The builder of the Suez Canal in Egypt namely Count Ferdinand de Lesseps led the charge, in 1880 the construction team broke ground on a planned sea-level canal.

The spread of yellow fever and malaria had no effective means to combat against it along with the incessant rains that caused heavy landslides as the French soon comprehended the monumental challenge ahead of them.

In 1888 the funding for this project was pulled out as De Lesseps belatedly realized that a sea-level canal was too difficult and reorganized efforts toward a lock canal.

Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal:

The U.S. purchased the French assets in the canal zone for $40 million in 1902 following the deliberations of the U.S. Isthmian Canal Commission and a push from President Theodore Roosevelt.

The U.S. threw its military weight behind a Panamanian independence movement when a proposed treaty over rights to build in what was then a Colombian territory was rejected, which eventually helped them negotiating a deal with the new government.

The United States recognized the Republic of Panama on November 6, 1903, and the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed with Panama on November 18 which granted the U.S. exclusive and permanent possession of the Panama Canal Zone.

Panama received an annuity of $250,000 beginning nine years later and extra $10 millions in exchange.

The treaty was condemned by many Panamanians as an infringement on their country’s new national sovereignty which they negotiated with U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and French engineer Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla.

The Americans devised plans for a sea-level canal along the roughly 50-mile stretch from Colón to Panama City seemingly not grasping the lessons from the French effort.

On May 4, 1904, the project officially commenced with a dedication ceremony but many immediate problems were encountered by chief engineer John Wallace.

The spread of yellow fever and malaria was frightening off the workforce while much of the French equipment was in need of repair. Wallace instead resigned after a year after being in under immense pressure to keep construction moving forward.

In July 1905 a railroad specialist named John Stevens took over as chief engineer immediately addressing the workforce issues by recruiting West Indian laborers.

New equipment and devised efficient methods to speed up work was preferred by Stevens, such as to lift chunks of railroad track the use of a swinging boom and for carting away excavated material adjusting the train route.

The difficulties posed by landslides was also got quickly recognized by him as he convinced Roosevelt that a lock canal was best for the terrain.

Chief sanitary officer Dr. William Gorgas helped in this project immensely believing that mosquitoes carried the deadly diseases indigenous to the area. His team painstakingly fumigated homes and cleansed pools of water as Gorgas embarked on a mission to wipe out the carriers.

Malaria cases dropped precipitously over the following decade while in November 1905 the last reported case of yellow fever on the isthmus came up.

The project suffered a setback when Stevens suddenly resigned a few months later although construction was on track when President Roosevelt visited the area in November 1906.

Army Corps engineer Lt. Col. George Washington Goethals was named as the new chief engineer by Roosevelt as he granted him all authority over all administrative matters in the building zone.

Goethals oversaw the addition of facilities to improve the quality of life for workers and their families although he also proved a no-nonsense commander by squashing a work strike after taking charge.

Panama Canal Dangers:

The clearing of the mountain range between Gamboa and Pedro Miguel was Culebra cut which took huge focused effort of Goethals. With up to 6,000 men contributing at any one time the excavation of the nearly 9-mile stretch became an around-the-clock operation.

Culebra Cut was a notorious danger zone despite the attention paid to this phase of the project, as casualties mounted from unpredictable landslides and dynamite explosions.

The pouring of concrete at Gatún in August 1909 began the construction of the locks. The locks were embedded with culverts that leveraged gravity to raise and lower water levels as it was built in pairs with each chamber measuring 110 feet wide by 1,000 feet long.

Ultimately, ships got lifted 85 feet above sea level with the help of the three locks along the canal route to a man-made Gatún Lake in the middle.

Varying in height from 47 to 82 feet the hollow buoyant lock gates were also built. The entire enterprise was run through a control board being powered by electricity.

Panama Canal Completed:

In 1913 this grand project began drawing to a close. In the center of Culebra Cut was the point where two steam shovels working from opposite directions met in May, and the last spillway at Gatún Dam was closed a few weeks later, to allow the lake to swell to its full height.

In October, a telegraph was operated at the White House by President Woodrow Wilson that triggered the explosion of Gamboa dike which flooded the final stretch of dry passageway at Culebra Cut.

On August 15, 1914 the Panama Canal was officially opened, although due to the outbreak of WWI the planned grand ceremony was downgraded. It was the most expensive construction project in U.S. history to that point which got completed at a cost of more than $350 million.

Altogether, around 240 million cubic yards of rock and dirt were excavated during the American construction phase and some 3.4 million cubic meters of concrete went into building the locks.

Between 1904 and 1913, roughly 5,600 were reportedly were killed our of the 56,000 workers who got employed to build the canal.

Impact of the Panama Canal:

The Panama Canal proved a vital component to expanding global trade routes in the 20th century being bolstered by the addition of Madden Dam in 1935.

On December 31, 1999 the Panama Canal Authority assumed full control and this transition to local oversight began with a 1977 treaty signed by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panama leader Omar Torrijos.

In 1994 the canal for recognized as one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the American Society is Civil Engineers and as of in September 2010 the canal hosted its 1 millionth passing ship.

Written by: Gourav Chowdhury