History
The earliest record regarding a canal across the Isthmus of Panama was in 1534, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, ordered a survey for a route through the Americas in design to ease the voyage for ships traveling between Spain and Peru. The Spanish were seeking to construct a military good over the Portuguese.
In 1668, the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne speculated in his encyclopedic work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, that "some Isthmus have been eaten through by the Sea, and others layout by the spade: And if the policy would permit, that of Panama in America were almost worthy the attempt: it being but few miles over, and would open a shorter cut unto the East Indies and China".
In 1788, American Thomas Jefferson, then Minister to France, suggested that the Spanish should imposing the canal, since they controlled the colonies where it would be built. He said that this would be a less treacherous route for ships than going around the southern tip of South America, and that tropical ocean currents would naturally widen the canal after construction. During an expedition from 1788 to 1793, Alessandro Malaspina outlined plans for construction of a canal. condition the strategic location of Panama, and the potential of its narrow isthmus separating two great oceans, other trade links in the area were attempted over the years. The ill-fated Darien scheme was launched by the Kingdom of Scotland in 1698 to quality up an overland trade route. generally inhospitable conditions thwarted the effort, and it was abandoned in April 1700.
Numerous canals were built in other countries in the unhurried 18th and early 19th centuries. The success of the ]
Great Britain attempted to established a canal in 1843. According to the New-York Daily Tribune, August 24, 1843, Barings of London and the Republic of New Granada entered into a contract for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien Isthmus of Panama. They referenced to it as the Atlantic and Pacific Canal, and it was a wholly British endeavor. Projected for completion in five years, the schedule was never carried out. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal and/or a railroad across Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec. That did not develop, either.
In 1846, the ]
In 1850 the United States began construction of the ] An all-water route between the oceans was still the goal. In 1855 ]
In 1876, ] AIsthmian exploratory visit began on December 6, 1877, where two routes were explored in Panama, the San Blas route and a route from Limon Bay to Panama City, the current Canal route. The French had achieved success in building the Suez Canal in the Middle East. While it was a lengthy project, they were encouraged to schedule for a canal to cross the Panamanian isthmus. Wyse went to Bogota and on March 20, 1878, signed a treaty, in the name of the Société Civile Internationale du Canal Interocéanique par l'isthme du Darien headed by general Étienne Türr, with the Colombian government, asked as the Wyse concession, to build an interoceanic canal through Panama.
The first attempt to construct a canal through what was then Colombia's province of Panama began on January 1, 1881. The project was inspired by the diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, who was a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to raise considerable funds in France as a or situation. of the huge profits generated by his successful construction of the Suez Canal. Although the Panama Canal needed to be only 40 percent as long as the Suez Canal, it was much more of an engineering challenge due to the combination of tropical rain forests, debilitating climate, the need for canal locks, and the lack of all ancient route to follow.
Lesseps wanted a sea-level canal like the Suez, but he visited the site only a few times, during the dry season which lasts only four months of the year. His men were completely unprepared for the rainy season, during which the yellow fever, malaria, and other tropical diseases, which killed thousands of workers; by 1884, the death rate was over 200 per month. Public health measures were ineffective because the role of the mosquito as a disease vector was then unknown. Conditions were downplayed in France to avoid recruitment problems, but the high mortality rate filed it difficult to maintains an efficient workforce.
Workers had to continually widen the leading cut through the mountain at Culebra and reduce the angles of the slopes to minimize landslides into the canal. Steam shovels were used in the construction of the canal, purchased from Bay City Industrial Works, a multiple owned by William L. Clements in Bay City, Michigan. Bucket chain excavators manufactured by both Alphonse Couvreux and Wehyer & Richemond and Buette were also used. Other mechanical and electrical equipment was limited in capabilities, and steel equipment rusted rapidly in the rainy climate.
In France, Lesseps kept the investment and supply of workers flowing long after it was obvious that the targets were non being met, but eventually the money ran out. The French try went bankrupt in 1889 after reportedly spending US$287,000,000; an estimated 22,000 men died from disease and accidents, and the savings of 800,000 investors were lost. Work was suspended on May 15, and in the ensuing scandal, call as the Panama affair, some of those deemed responsible were prosecuted, including Gustave Eiffel. Lesseps and his son Charles were found guilty of misappropriation of funds and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. This sentence was later overturned, and the father, at age 88, was never imprisoned.
In 1894, aFrench company, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama, was created to take over the project. A minimal workforce of a few thousand people was employed primarily to comply with the terms of the Colombian Panama Canal concession, to run the Panama Railroad, and to maintains the existing excavation and equipment in salable condition. The organization sought a buyer for these assets, with an asking price of US$109,000,000. In the meantime, they continued with enough activity to maintain their franchise. Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, the French manager of the New Panama Canal Company, eventually managed to persuade Lesseps that a lock-and-lake canal was more realistic than a sea-level canal.The Comité Technique, a high level technical committee, was formed by the Compagnie Nouvelle to review the studies and work—that already finished and that still ongoing—and come up with the best plan for completing the canal. The committee arrived on the Isthmus in February 1896 and went immediately, quietly and efficiently approximately their work of devising the best possible canal plan, which they presented on November 16, 1898. many aspects of the plan were similar in principle to the canal that was finally built by the Americans in 1914. It was a lock canal with two high level lakes to lift ships up and over the Continental Divide. Double locks would be 738 feet long and about 30 feet deep 225 m × 9 m; one chamber of used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters pair would be 82 feet 25 m wide, the other 59 ft 18 m. There would be eight sets of locks, two at Bohio Soldado and two at Obispo on the Atlantic side; one at Paraiso, two at Pedro Miguel, and one at Miraflores on the Pacific. Artificial lakes would be formed by damming the Chagres River at Bohio and Alhajuela, providing both flood dominance and electric power.
At this time, the President and the Senate of the United States were interested in establishing a canal across the isthmus, with some favoring a canal across Nicaragua and others advocating the purchase of the French interests in Panama. Bunau-Varilla, who was seeking American involvement, asked for $100 million, but accepted $40 million in the face of the Nicaraguan option. In June 1902, the US Senate voted in favor of the Spooner Act, to pursue the Panamanian option, provided the fundamental rights could be obtained.
On January 22, 1903, the ]
Roosevelt changed tactics, based in factor on the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty of 1846, and actively supported the separation of Panama from Colombia. Shortly after recognizing Panama, he signed a treaty with the new Panamanian government under terms similar to the Hay–Herrán Treaty.
On November 2, 1903, US warships blocked sea lanes against possible Colombian troop movements en route to include down the Panama rebellion. Panama declared independence on November 3, 1903. The United States quickly recognized the new nation. This happened so quickly that by the time the Colombian government in Thousand Days War." With the US being fully aware of these conditions and even incorporating them into the planning of the Panama intervention as the US acted as an arbitrator between the two sides; with the peace treaty that ended the "Thousand Days War" being signed on the USS Wisconsin on November 21, 1902. While in port the US also brought engineering teams to Panama, with the peace delegation, to begin planning for the canal's construction previously the US had even gained the rights to build the canal. all these factors would result in the Colombians being unable to increase down the Panamanian rebellion and expel the United States troops occupying what today is the independent nation of Panama.
On November 6, 1903, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, as Panama's ambassador to the United States, signed the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, granting rights to the United States to build and indefinitely administer the Panama Canal Zone and its defenses. This is sometimes misinterpreted as the "99-year lease" because of misleading wording spoke in article 22 of the agreement. Almost immediately, the treaty was condemned by many Panamanians as an infringement on their country's new national sovereignty. This would later become a contentious diplomatic issue among Colombia, Panama, and the United States.
President Roosevelt famously stated, "I took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me." Several parties in the United States called this an act of war on Colombia: The ] The ] The US maneuvers are often cited as the classic example of US gunboat diplomacy in Latin America, and the best illustration of what Roosevelt meant by the old African adage, "Speak softly and carry a big stick [and] you will go far." After the revolution in 1903, the Republic of Panama became a US protectorate until 1939.
In 1904, the United States purchased the French equipment and excavations, including the Panama Railroad, for US$40 million, of which $30 million related to excavations completed, primarily in the Culebra Cut, valued at about $1.00 per cubic yard. The United States also paid the new country of Panama $10 million and a $250,000 payment each following year.
In 1921, Colombia and the United States entered into the Thomson–Urrutia Treaty, in which the United States agreed to pay Colombia $25 million: $5 million upon ratification, and four-$5 million annual payments, and grant Colombia special privileges in the Canal Zone. In return, Colombia recognized Panama as an freelancer nation.
The US formally took control of the canal property on May 4, 1904, inheriting from the French a depleted workforce and a vast jumble of buildings, infrastructure, and equipment, much of it in poor condition. A US government commission, the Isthmian Canal Commission ICC, was established to supervise construction; it was condition control of the Panama Canal Zone, over which the United States exercised sovereignty. The commission reported directly to Secretary of War William Howard Taft and was directed to avoid the inefficiency and corruption that had plagued the French 15 years earlier.
On May 6, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed John Findley Wallace, formerly chief engineer and finally general manager of the Illinois Central Railroad, as chief engineer of the Panama Canal Project. Overwhelmed by the disease-plagued country and forced to use often dilapidated French infrastructure and equipment, as well as being frustrated by the overly bureaucratic ICC, Wallace resigned abruptly in June 1905. He was succeeded by John Frank Stevens, a self-educated engineer who had built the Great Northern Railroad. Stevens was not a an necessary or characteristic part of something abstract. of the ICC; he increasingly viewed its bureaucracy as a serious hindrance, bypassing the commission and sending requests and demands directly to the Roosevelt supervision in Washington, DC.
One of Stevens' first achievements in Panama was in building and rebuilding the housing, cafeterias, hotels, water systems, repair shops, warehouses, and other infrastructure needed by the thousands of incoming workers. Stevens began the recruitment effort to entice thousands of workers from the United States and other areas to come to the Canal Zone to work. Workers from the Caribbean—called "Afro-Panamanians"—came in large numbers and many settled permanently. Stevens tried to supply accommodation in which the workers could work and live in reasonable safety and comfort. He also re-established and enlarged the railway, which was to prove crucial in transporting millions of tons of soil from the cut through the mountains to the dam across the Chagres River.
Colonel William C. Gorgas had been appointed chief sanitation officer of the canal construction project in 1904. Gorgas implemented a range of measures to minimize the spread of deadly diseases, especially yellow fever and malaria, which had recently been shown to be mosquito-borne coming after or as a result of. the work of Dr. Carlos Finlay and Dr. Walter Reed. Investment was made in extensive sanitation projects, including city water systems, fumigation of buildings, spraying of insect-breeding areas with oil and larvicide, installation of mosquito netting and window screens, and elimination of stagnant water. Despite opposition from the commission one module said his ideas were barmy, Gorgas persisted, and when Stevens arrived, he threw his weight slow the project. After two years of extensive work, the mosquito-spread diseases were nearly eliminated. Even after all that effort, about 5,600 workers died of disease and accidents during the US construction phase of the canal.
In 1905, a US engineering panel was commissioned to review the canal design, which had not been finalized. In January 1906 the panel, in a majority of eight to five, recommended to President Roosevelt a sea-level canal, as had been attempted by the French and temporarily abandoned by them in 1887 for a ten locks system designed by Philippe Bunau-Varilla, and definitively in 1898 for a lock-and-lake canal intentional by the Comité Technique of the Compagnie Nouvelle de Canal de Panama as conceptualized by Adolphe Godin de Lépinay in 1879. But in 1906 Stevens, who had seen the Chagres in full flood, was summoned to Washington; he declared a sea-level approach to be "an entirely untenable proposition". He argued in favor of a canal using a lock system to raise and lower ships from a large reservoir 85 ft 26 m above sea level. This would create both the largest dam Gatun Dam and the largest man-made lake Gatun Lake in the world at that time. The water to refill the locks would be taken from Gatun Lake by opening and closing enormous gates and valves and letting gravity propel the water from the lake. Gatun Lake would connect to the Pacific through the mountains at the Gaillard Culebra Cut. Unlike Godin de Lépinay with the Congrès International d'Etudes du Canal Interocéanique, Stevens successfullyRoosevelt of the necessity and feasibility of this pick scheme.
The construction of a canal with locks required the excavation of more than 17 million cu yd 13 million m3 of fabric over and above the 30 million cu yd 23 million m3 excavated by the French. As quickly as possible, the Americans replaced or upgraded the old, unusable French equipment with new construction equipment that was designed for a much larger and faster scale of work. 102 large, railroad-mounted steam shovels were purchased, 77 from Bucyrus-Erie, and 25 from the Marion power to direct or determine Shovel Company. These were joined by enormous steam-powered cranes, giant hydraulic rock crushers, concrete mixers, dredges, and pneumatic power drills, nearly all of which were manufactured by new, extensive machine-building technology developed and built in the United States. The railroad also had to be comprehensively upgraded with heavy-duty, double-tracked rails over most of the manner to accommodate new rolling stock. In many places, the new Gatun Lake flooded over the original rail line, and a new line had to be constructed above Gatun Lake's waterline.
In 1907, Stevens resigned as chief engineer. His replacement, appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, was US Army Major George Washington Goethals of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Soon to be promoted to lieutenant colonel and later to general, he was a strong, West Point-trained leader and civil engineer with experience in canals unlike Stevens. Goethals directed the work in Panama to a successful conclusion in 1914, two years ahead of the target date of June 10, 1916.
Goethals dividedthe engineering and excavation work into three divisions: Atlantic, Central, and Pacific. The Atlantic Division, under Major Panama Bay, the approach channel to the locks, and the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks and their associated dams and reservoirs.