The Panama Canal
by Wendy AronWith the opening of the Panama Canal on October 10, 1913, one of the greatest engineering feats in history was officially completed. The waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were joined when President Woodrow Wilson pushed a button in Washington, exploding dynamite that destroyed the final barrier between the two bodies of water.
The achievement fulfilled a century’s old dream of reducing the 7000 mile long voyage around Cape Horn. After the explorer Balboa crossed the width of Panama in 1513 and discovered that only a 50 mile wide strip of land separated the Atlantic from the Pacific, the possibility of constructing a canal that would connect the oceans seemed feasible. Through the years such varied and distinguished people as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Simone Bolivar had been advocates of a Panama Canal construction.
A Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps, was the first to undertake Panama Canal construction. He had directed the building of the Suez Canal and was the premier canal builder of his time. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. De Lesseps organized a private company and obtained digging rights in Panama from the government of Colombia. He began Panama Canal construction in February of 1881. However, de Lesseps had not foreseen the prohibitive costs of cutting through the hard rock of the continental divide. He had built the Suez Canal through sand dunes. Panama Canal history indicates that other problems contributed to the Frenchman’s ultimate failure, particularly epidemics of malaria and yellow fever that had struck down a large part of the European labor force. The company went bankrupt in 1889 and construction on the canal was abandoned.
Through the years, various attempts were made to salvage the ambitious plan to construct the Panama Canal. Problems moving the navy between oceans during the Spanish American war of 1898 convinced the United States of the strategic military importance of a canal across the isthmus. One of the major forces behind the project was President Teddy Roosevelt who formed the commission to study ordinate central American routes. It was finally agreed to follow the basic path of the unfinished French canal.
With Roosevelt’s encouragement, there was a revolt in the province of Panama in 1904 which resulted in its independence from Colombia. Shortly thereafter, a treaty was signed with the new country of Panama which allowed the US to build the Panama Canal. Using a labor force that at times reached 40,000 men, construction began later that year.
The equivalent of $660 million was paid to the French company for its initial work. $165 million was paid to Panama for construction rights with an additional amount to be paid to the country every year thereafter. The treaty granted to the United States in perpetuity complete jurisdiction over a strip of land 10 miles wide across the isthmus which became known as the canal zone.
The US government soon faced the same obstacles that had stymied the French. The engineering plan was eventually changed to a lock design that precluded cutting through large stretches of rock. The Panama Canal could not have been completed however without the work of medical science. After it was discovered that malaria and yellow fever were carried by mosquitoes, both diseases were virtually eradicated from the canal zone. Even so more than 6000 workers died during the 10 years it took for Panama Canal construction.
In terms of modern Panama Canal history, decades of brewing dissatisfaction over the terms of the treaty came to a head in 1964 when Panamanian writers clashed with US troops. It was to take 15 more years of painful and painstaking negotiations to arrive at a new agreement. In 1979, a new treaty became effective that gave sovereignty of the canal to the country of Panama.
The ships for which the Panama Canal was designed are now long gone from service. These vessels could carry up to 65,000 tons of cargo, whereas modern ships can carry over 300,000 tons. The increase in the tonnage that can be carried has caused problems for the canal. Still, despite the limit in ship size, the canal is one of the most highly traveled waterways in the world, handling over 12,000 ships per year. The 51-mile crossing takes about nine hours to complete, an immense time saving when compared with rounding the tip of South America. More than 90 years after it was completed, the Panama Canal is still one of the greatest engineering achievements in the world.
