In the Western Hemisphere, 800 miles north of the equator, a narrow land bridge connects two
continents and separates two oceans. In 1914, this land bridge, or isthmus, was severed,
cut in two by the Panama Canal.
In the Western Hemisphere, 800 miles north of the equator, a narrow land bridge connects two
continents and separates two oceans. In 1914, this land bridge, or isthmus, was severed, cut in two by the Panama Canal.
In the Western Hemisphere, 800 miles north of the equator, a narrow land bridge connects two continents and separates two oceans.
Long before there was a canal through the isthmus, there was a cobblestone trail over it.
The Spanish Trail, El Camino Real, the King's Highway.
Before there was a Spanish Trail, Christopher Columbus explored the Atlantic side of the isthmus in the year 1502.
Columbus was searching for a hidden strait, or water passage, that would lead directly to the markets of Asia.
To his dying day, he never realized that a vast ocean lay beyond these jungled hills, or that he had actually discovered a whole new continent.
Eleven years after Columbus, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the isthmus and became the first European to touch the eastern shores of the Pacific.
Balboa named his discovery the South Sea and claimed it and all the lands it touched for the Spanish crown.
Spanish soldiers followed, Conquistadores, marching south over the cobblestone trail to the new settlement of Panama.
And from Panama, Spanish soldiers plundered the coasts of South America and the islands of the South Pacific.
And as soldiers marched south over the trail, spoils of conquest were carried north.
Treasures on their way to Spain, gold and silver from the Incas, pearls and spices from the islands of the South Pacific.
In 1524, King Charles of Spain ordered a survey for the purpose of building a canal, but nothing came of it.
Thirty years later, King Philip concluded, if God had wanted a water route through the isthmus, he would have put one there.
During the 16th century, French, Dutch and English privateers attacked Spanish treasure ships.
Here in the 1570s, Captain Francis Drake began his celebrated career and here, 30 years later, Sir Francis Drake died of tropical fever.
He was buried at sea near a small offshore island that still bears his name.
To protect the treasure and the treasure ships, Spain built two forts, one at the end of the land trail, Portobello.
The other at the mouth of the Chagres River, San Lorenzo.
But Portobello and San Lorenzo did not stop all intruders.
In 1671, the pirate Henry Morgan and his band of ruffians stormed San Lorenzo.
Then swashbuckled across the isthmus to sack and burn the city of Panama.
Spain's New World Empire lasted for three centuries.
By the year 1821, revolts and revolutions had forced it to an end.
Then, less than 30 years later, it was gold, gold again, this time California gold that created a stampede across the isthmus.
Hundreds of 49ers, all in a hurry to be first, gambled on this shortcut to California.
A railroad followed.
But instead of the estimated two years to complete, it took five.
And the cost was six times more than anticipated.
Also more than anticipated was the cost of human life.
Each day during construction years, a funeral train steamed its way to a local cemetery.
However, in 1855, the Panama Railroad was the world's first transcontinental, ocean to ocean in three hours.
And it had a perfect monopoly on all travel across the isthmus.
Twenty-five dollars in gold to ride first class.
Ten dollars second class.
And five dollars to walk the track.
At one time, the Panama Railroad was the highest priced stock listed on the New York Exchange.
A railroad across the isthmus.
But what about a canal?
A canal would save ships 8,000 miles and several months sailing time.
Right after Spanish rule had dissolved, canal surveys began.
Surveys up and down the isthmus.
Surveys by England and France.
Surveys by Holland and the United States.
Then in 1879, the Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps, sailed to Panama and told the world, the canal will be made.
De Lesseps, a man of extraordinary charm and persuasion, was the driving force behind the Suez Canal.
A 100 mile ditch dug through the deserts of Egypt.
De Lesseps argued that a sea level canal through Panama would be only half as long as Suez.
Therefore, it would be easier to build and maintain.
But De Lesseps was 75 years old.
And during the 10 years of French construction, he made only two brief visits to Panama.
Like a general far in the rear, he waged a mighty campaign against a distant wilderness.
And his boundless optimism and fierce determination to succeed that had made Suez a triumph, made Panama a disaster.
He claimed the climate was healthy. It was not.
Of the French men and women who went to the isthmus, two out of three died there.
Two out of three.
Noxious vapors, swamp gas, jungle fever.
These were the reported killers.
The real killers were still at large.
De Lesseps also underestimated the jungle, the dense, unyielding jungle.
And he miscalculated the immensity of the project.
From an engineering standpoint, there were two large lions blocking the path of a sea level canal.
One lion was the Chagres River, a river that could rise 40 feet overnight.
When asked how he would control the Chagres, De Lesseps always replied, we'll divert it.
But he never explained precisely how.
The other lion was the Continental Divide, the spine, the backbone of two continents.
A sea level canal required a cut nine miles long and several hundred feet deep.
De Lesseps pictured a neat vertical cut, but sudden storms caused mudslides.
And when side walls caved in, French engineers discovered that the more they dug, the more they had left to dig.
They finally realized that entire mountains on both sides of the cut would have to be removed.
By 1889, it was apparent that 19th century French equipment could not conquer the jungled hills and wild rivers of Panama.
In France, failure of the canal brought financial ruin to the privately owned construction company.
For De Lesseps and for those who fell with him, the canal at Panama was written off as a graveyard of reputations.
In 1914, 25 years after the French and nearly four centuries after the first canal survey,
the United States completed a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.
Construction began in 1904. That was six years after the Spanish-American War convinced Americans that two months was too long to get a battleship from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Although construction began in 1904, in 1902, most politicians in Washington favored a canal at Nicaragua.
However, during the debate, one of Nicaragua's volcanoes had a splendid eruption.
Panama, it was argued, did not have volcanoes.
The vote was 42 to 34. Panama by eight votes. Eight votes. Had five members of Congress voted differently, it might very well be the Nicaragua Canal.
The final resurrection of Panama came in November 1903.
Panama declared independence from Colombia. A revolution followed.
A four-day revolution, discreetly sanctioned and ominously backed by the United States.
Now the Isthmus belonged to the Republic of Panama.
I took the Isthmus, started the canal, and then left Congress, not to debate the canal, but to debate me.
But while the debate goes on, the canal does too.
Theodore Roosevelt, first of the three presidents who served during the construction of the canal.
Roosevelt announced that the dirt would be made to fly and the mountains to yield.
But neither one happened. The same obstacles that had vexed the French vexed Americans.
By 1900, malaria and yellow fever had been traced to two different types of mosquitoes.
But most Americans regarded the mosquito theory as newfangled nonsense.
Balderdash. It was ridiculous to spend time and money chasing mosquitoes.
Understaffed and without funds or supplies, Dr. William Gorgas was powerless to stop the epidemic that followed.
An epidemic that brought the workforce to a halt.
Only after John Stevens became chief engineer in 1905 did Gorgas get full backing.
Isolation wards, fumigation brigades, swamps were drained, and standing water was either covered or coated with oil.
In less than two years, there was a dramatic turnabout.
Yellow fever was eliminated. Malaria reduced by 50%.
Now and only now could the canal be built.
Music
Another obstacle to de Lessep's dream, the Chagres River, was held in check by a massive earth dam and spillway.
The Chagres backed up to form Lake Gatun.
In 1914, Lake Gatun was the largest man-made lake in the world.
About one-half of the canal transit is made through the waters of Lake Gatun.
By 1907, both fever and flood were under control.
And by 1907, the mountains had not been made to yield.
At Culebra Cut, the nine-mile dig through the Continental Divide, the battle between man and nature climaxed.
Like the French, American engineers underestimated the amount of dirt to be removed.
They, too, discovered that the more they dug, the more they had left to dig.
In a matter of hours, giant mudslides wiped out a whole month's work.
Avalanches of mud, tropical glaciers of mud and rock.
Because of the mud, every vehicle and piece of equipment had to run on tracks.
And because of the incessant rain and sweltering heat, working conditions were intolerable.
Yet for seven years, day and night, the cut was never silent.
For seven years, machines stopped only for maintenance and repair.
For seven years, Chief Engineer George Gothels predicted that the slides would stop.
But the slides did not stop.
Gothels had replaced John Stevens as Chief Engineer in 1907.
He carried to a conclusion Stephen's master plan for digging and for getting rid of the dirt.
Getting rid of the dirt had baffled the French 20 years earlier.
Compared to the French, American equipment was twice as big, twice as powerful and five times more efficient.
One factor, however, remained the same.
The men who actually built the canal, the laborers, the operators were predominantly black.
And predominantly from the islands of the West Indies.
Of all the struggles at Panama, the excavation at Culebra Cut was by far the worst and by far the most magnificent.
It was the special wonder of the canal.
People came from all over the world to see the Nine Mile Canyon through the Continental Divide.
And they came to see the famous slides.
Even after the canal was completed, the slides did not stop.
A slide in 1915 closed operations for seven months.
Because of the unstable elements, the cut, now renamed Gayard, requires constant surveillance.
Drilling and dredging have never ceased.
A sea level canal or a lock canal, the decision to build a lock canal was not made until 1906,
two full years after construction had started.
And the decision to build a lock canal made most of the French excavation useless.
At Panama, there are six locks, three sets at each end of the canal.
These locks raise ships 85 feet above sea level.
Upon completion, they surpassed any similar structures in the world in size and movement.
A single lock stood on end was taller than the Eiffel Tower.
And unlike a bridge or building, they did not just stand there, they worked.
They had thousands of moving parts.
Concrete poured by the ton had to move within a framework of inches.
The whole locking operation depends upon nine months of heavy rainfall and gravity.
Water flows downhill into Lake Gatun.
Water flows downhill into the locks.
And for each ship that passes through the canal, 52 million gallons of fresh water are dumped into the sea.
The water consumed by the canal in one day, the water consumed in one day would keep the city of Boston supplied for two weeks.
In 1914, the outbreak of World War I overshadowed the opening ceremonies of the canal.
Most newspapers shuffled it to the back pages.
Yet up to 1914, no single construction effort attempted by the government of the United States could compare to the Panama Canal.
The amount of earth removed to dig the entire ditch was equal to a building 19 miles high.
A building 19 miles high with a full city block for its base.
The cost alone was five times more than the government had spent to acquire all new land and territory up to that time.
That included the Louisiana Purchase, Alaska, and the Philippine Islands.
But what was perhaps even more remarkable, construction was completed six months ahead of schedule.
And the cost was significantly under the estimate.
The Treaty of 1904, the Treaty of 1904 gave the United States both the right to build the canal
and complete sovereignty over a 10 mile wide strip of land called the Canal Zone.
Within the Canal Zone, only Panama City and Colon would be governed by Panama.
For these concessions, the United States paid Panama a sum of $10 million.
And beginning in 1913, a yearly payment of $250,000.
But the conditions of this treaty and the attitudes of both Americans and Panamanians caused strained relations.
New treaties were signed in 1939 and in 1955.
There were local riots in 59, 62, and 64.
In 1978, another treaty returned more than half of the Canal Zone to Panama.
And provided that the operation of the canal would be Panama's responsibility by the year 2000.
Because of the geographical twist of the isthmus, the Atlantic opening to the canal is farther west than the Pacific.
And because of this twist, Panama is the only country in the world where the sun rises over the Pacific and sets over the Atlantic.
For ships to pass from ocean to ocean, 8 to 10 hours are required.
Specially trained canal pilots board all ships and guide them through the unpredictable winds, changing water currents, heavy rain, and thick fog.
Even the captains of warships must yield control of their vessels.
One pilot for small craft.
Large tankers and container ships require as many as four.
Tolls are determined by weight and by the type of cargo.
In 1977, the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth II paid over $68,000 for a single passage.
However, the average toll for 1977 was $14,000.
The lowest toll on record was paid by Richard Halliburton.
In 1929, Halliburton swam the canal.
And based on his body weight of 140 pounds, he was charged 36 cents.
Over the years, there have been improvements. Gale yard cut was widened from 300 to 500 feet.
The original towing locomotives were replaced by more powerful models.
On the Panama Railroad, travel time between Cologne and Panama City has been cut in half.
And to ride an air-conditioned coach costs less than what the first Panama Railroad charged to walk the track.
In 1966, channel lights were installed, making transit possible on a 24-hour schedule.
One feature, however, has not changed.
Rowboats still carry towing ropes from ship to shore, just as they did when the canal first opened.
Another unique feature at Panama is the lack of noise.
Something as big as the Panama Canal should make a lot of noise. It doesn't.
There is an occasional horn blast, a clanging bell, or the soft whine of electric locomotives.
But for the most part, the 51-mile journey through jungle and mountain is characterized by a haunting stillness.
The quiet is perhaps a fitting counterpoint to the sounds of the past.
Back to the sounds of construction, when there was never a moment's silence.
Back to the sounds of the first transcontinental.
Back to the sounds of the 49ers.
And back to the sounds of Spanish soldiers making heavy footsteps over the El Camino Real, a highway built for a Spanish king.
Back to the sounds of construction, when there was never a moment's silence.