Decision to build in Panama (1897-1904) First U.S. initiatives toward a Central American canal In the late nineteenth century, Americans widely accepted that any Central American canal would be built in
Nicaragua, as recommended in 1876 by President Grant's Interoceanic Canal Commission. In 1887, a
United States Army Corps of Engineers regiment surveyed canal possibilities in Nicaragua. Two years later, the Maritime Canal Company was organised to build a canal across Nicaragua, but collapsed financially in the
panic of 1893. In 1897, President
William McKinley (1897-1901) tasked a commission headed by Rear Admiral
John Grimes Walker (the "Nicaraguan Canal Commission") to recommend the best route for a canal through Nicaragua.
William Nelson Cromwell successfully lobbied the Government to consider alternatives to Nicaragua. As a result, McKinley in 1899 created the
Isthmian Canal Commission (also known as the "second Walker Commission"), which was to give the final word. Cromwell wrote later that he considered the establishment of the second Walker Commission his proudest achievement, although he was unable to prevent the re-appointment of many commissioners. In 1898, McKinley directed U.S. Secretary of State
John Hay to negotiate a new treaty with the
United Kingdom to replace the
Clayton–Bulwer Treaty (1850), which remained a diplomatic stumbling block to U.S. investment in the building of a Central American canal.
Role of Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), the driving force behind U.S. construction of the
Panama Canal. According to historian David McCullough, the building of the Panama Canal can be credited above all to U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909). It is true that the canal was constructed under three U.S. presidents – Roosevelt,
Taft (1909–1913) and
Wilson (1913–1921) – and that it is Taft who gave the project his most personal attention. Taft visited Panama five times as Roosevelt's secretary of war and twice as president. He hired John Stevens and later recommended Goethals as Stevens' replacement. Nonetheless, it was Roosevelt who made the critical decisions – the terms of the
Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, the choice of the route through Panama, U.S. support for
Secession of Panama from Colombia, his personal backing for
William C. Gorgas against his detractors, and the choice of a lock-and-lake design over a sea-level canal. According to engineer
George W. Goethals, who completed the canal, "the real builder of the Panama Canal was Theodore Roosevelt." Goethals wrote that the canal could not have been more Roosevelt's triumph "if he had personally lifted every shovelful of earth in its construction..." Just as the personal force of
Ferdinand de Lesseps set the construction of the canal in motion, it was Roosevelt's personal drive which ensured that the canal was completed. Roosevelt had been committed to building American naval power at least since his time lecturing at
Harvard University in the 1880s. There he met and befriended
Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose influential book
The Influence of Sea Power upon History argued that naval power was decisive in determining the influence of nations. Roosevelt was an enthusiastic supporter of Mahan's views, and wrote to him privately that a Central American canal must be built. At that time, Roosevelt, like the vast majority of Americans, assumed that the canal would be built in Nicaragua. He became a vocal advocate for the building of a canal, writing letters and addressing business clubs on the subject. For him, a primary illustration of the need for a canal was the voyage of the
USS Oregon at the start of the
Spanish–American War. The battleship was ordered in March 1898 to proceed from its base on the west coast of the U.S. to join the North Atlantic Squadron and made an epic 14,000 nmi (26,000 km) voyage around the tip of South America to do so. As
Governor of New York, Roosevelt led opposition to the initial version of the
Hay–Pauncefote Treaty (signed 1900), which would have provided for any Central American canal to be neutral. The resulting opposition led to a Senate amendment which proved unacceptable to the British, requiring the treaty to be renegotiated. After Roosevelt's accession to the Presidency (September 1901), he requested John Hay to continue in office as Secretary of State and to continue with treaty negotiations. The new version of the treaty, which was signed in November 1901, met Roosevelt's full approval, since it gave the U.S. the right to build and maintain a canal, to protect it as it saw fit, and did not require that the canal would be open to all in time of war.
Choice of Panama .. , the engineer who recommended building the canal in
Panama., who championed in Congress the decision to build in Panama. Following the establishment of the
second Walker Commission in 1899,
William Nelson Cromwell and
Philippe Bunau-Varilla invested time and energy in cultivating relations with members of the commission, as well as influential politicians including Senator
Mark Hanna. An invitation was issued by the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama for the commission members to visit its offices in Paris. There they were shown maps, engineer reports and other technical documents relevant to the company's assets in Panama, as well as the plans for a lock canal. Following their inspection of possible canal sites in Panama and Nicaragua, the commission issued a confidential preliminary report on November 21, 1901. The recommendation was once again for Nicaragua, although the commission noted the strong argument for continuing the canal at Panama. The main ground for favoring Nicaragua was the price for purchasing rights to Panama from the Compagnie Nouvelle, which had been informally quoted at $109 million. This was considered excessive, as the commission estimated the value to the U.S: of the French concession (including excavations and the Panama Railroad) at only $40 million. However,
George S. Morison, the most eminent engineer on the commission, wrote a minority report in favor of Panama on technical grounds.
William Randolph Hearst leaked the commission's report to Bunau-Varilla, who called an emergency meeting of the Compagnie Nouvelle stockholders in Paris in December 21. There Bunau-Varilla presented information he had obtained from a Chicago journalist that $40 million would be the maximum acceptable price. On January 4, 1902 the Compagnie Nouvelle formally notified the Walker Commission of their selling price, which was precisely $40 million. Until 1901, President Roosevelt had been convinced that a canal through Nicaragua was the best route. On December 10, 1901 Morison wrote Roosevelt a letter giving the technical grounds for preferring the Panama route. In January 1902, Roosevelt called the members of the commission into his office individually and asked them to give their own personal evaluations of the best route. Following this, Roosevelt held a closed meeting with the entire commission in his office, where he made it clear that he wanted the French offer to be accepted. In late January, the commission issued the final version of its report, unanimously recommending Panama. , in
Lake Nicaragua. The proposal to purchase the French rights to Panama had a stormy passage through both houses of Congress. Senator
John T. Morgan, a lifelong advocate of building a canal through Nicaragua, grilled the members of the Walker Committee on the reasons for their final change in recommendations. The choice of Panama was championed by Senator Mark Hanna. In a speech on June 5–6, Hanna referred to enormous maps of Central America he had placed, stretching from the ceiling of the Senate Chamber to the floor. The maps were prominently marked with red dots indicating active volcanoes and black volcanoes marking extinct ones. Whereas Nicaragua was marked with eight red dots and an almost continuous band of black dots, no dots appeared on the map of Panama. The tactic gained attention, since on May 2–8 the
1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on the island of
Martinique had killed around 28,000 people. Hanna pointed out that his maps, which had been prepared several months previously, indicated Mount Pelée as extinct. Hanna noted many advantages of a Panama canal: it would be shorter than a Nicaraguan canal, would require less excavation, and had existing harbors at either end. The point was emphasized when Cromwell and Bunau-Varilla remembered that Nicaragua depicted volcanoes on its
postage stamps, and ransacked Washington stamp dealers until they found enough to send to the entire Senate. The purchase of the French-held land for $40 million was eventually authorized by Congress in the June 28, 1902
Spooner Act.
Secession of Panama from Colombia in 1903 Since Panama was then part of
Colombia,
United States Secretary of State John M. Hay began negotiating with that country to obtain the necessary rights. On 22 January 1903, the
Hay–Herrán Treaty was signed by Hay and Colombian
Chargé Tomás Herrán. For $10 million and an annual payment, it would have granted the United States a renewable
lease in perpetuity from Colombia on the land proposed for the canal. The treaty was ratified by the US Senate on 14 March 1903. However, in Bogotá the treaty became unpopular because of perceptions of insufficient compensation and threat to sovereignty resulting from the lease in perpetuity. As a result, in August 1903, the
Senate of Colombia unanimously rejected the treaty. The intransigence of authorities in Bogotá frustrated business owners and landowners in Panama who hoped that an American resumption of the canal would bring prosperity to Panama. A secessionist movement quickly developed, headed by
José Agustín Arango, and began working on a plan for the independence of Panama. The group was soon joined by
Manuel Amador Guerrero, who would become the leader of the independence movement. Amador traveled to New York in September 1903 to determine how the United States might support the separation movement. U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt had also become frustrated with the conflicting messages from Colombia, and decided to actively support the
secession of Panama from Colombia, believing that the gratitude of Panamanian leaders would make them more amenable than the Colombians to working with the U.S. Amador was put in touch with Roosevelt by Bunau-Varilla. Roosevelt carefully avoided endorsing the revolt, but told Amador that if the Panamanian separatists revolted, the US would view this as a positive development and could be counted on to act accordingly. However, he warned Amador to avoid violence, since the American people would not recognize independence gained through bloodshed. The
USS Nashville landed on 2 November 1903 off the coast of Colón, using as pretext the
Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty of 1846, which required the U.S. to preserve the peaceful use of the
Panama Railroad. The following day, the Colombian troops also made landfall at Colón. The conspirators had received word of the Colombian troops on their way, resulting in some desertions from the cause. However, Amador's wife María de la Ossa produced a plan to separate the Colombian generals from their troops with the aid of sympathetic management from the Panama Railroad. Amador contacted James Shaler (superintendent of the Panama Railroad) and Herbert G. Prescott (assistant superintendent) for their agreement and then gained approval from the other conspirators for the plan. Consequently, when Generals
Juan Tovar and
Ramón Amaya landed in Colón, they were met by Superintendent Shaler, who convinced the generals to go ahead to Panama City to see Governor
Obaldía without their troops, while the railroad was gathering sufficient cars for the troops. General
Huertas, commander of the
Colombia Battalion in Panama, ordered the arrest of Tovar and his aides on their arrival in
Panama City. Upon hearing of the arrests, the tiradores in Colón, commanded by Col.
Eliseo Torres, surrounded railroad workers and American troops garrisoned in the railroad yard. However, the tiradores were persuaded to leave Colón, under threat from the American gunboat
USS Nashville, whose commander insisted that under the terms of the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty he was not permitted to allow military use of the railroad. This is often cited as a classic example of the era of
gunboat diplomacy. The Colombian gunboat
Bogotá fired shells upon Panama City the night of November 3, causing injuries and mortally wounding Mr. Wong Kong Yee of Hong Sang, China. He was the only casualty of independence. With the plan to neutralize the Colombian troops successfully concluded, Panama's independence was proclaimed by Amador and his fellow conspirators. The Municipal Council then met and confirmed the establishment of the Republic of Panama. The United States quickly recognized the new nation. 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
New York Times described the support given by the United States to Bunau-Varilla as an "act of sordid conquest". The
New York Evening Post called it a "vulgar and mercenary venture". 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." 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 independent nation.
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty On 6 November 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 administer the Panama Canal Zone and its defenses. This treaty gave the US some rights to the canal "in perpetuity", but in article 22 limited other rights to a lease period of 99 years. 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. The leaders of the new government in breakaway Panama felt they had no choice but to accept the canal treaty due to a veiled threat presented by Bunau-Varilla: that failure to ratify the treaty would result in the end of U.S. support. Had the U.S. withdrawn its warships, the Colombian army would have returned to Panama and executed the members of the new government. However this threat was without merit. "The notion that Roosevelt would abandon Panama at this point, that he would leave the junta to the vengeance of Colombia, that he would now suddenly turn around and treat with Bogota, was not simply without foundation, but ridiculous to anyone the least familiar with the man or the prevailing temper in Washington. Nothing of the kind was ever even remotely contemplated at the White House or the State Department." The provisional government of Panama was thus pressured into signing the treaty, although it generously favored U.S. interests. 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. The victorious Panamanians gave the United States control of the
Panama Canal Zone on February 23, 1904, in accordance with the November 18, 1903
Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty.
United States construction of the Panama canal (1904–1914) Beginning construction The United States formally took control of the French property connected to the canal on May 4, 1904, when Lieutenant Mark Brooke of the United States Army was presented with the keys during a small ceremony. The U.S. inherited 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 oversee construction; it was given 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 that had plagued the French 15 years earlier. On 6 May 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. The first step taken by the US government was to place all the canal workers under the new administration. The operation was maintained at minimum strength to comply with the canal concession and keep the machinery in working order. The US inherited a small workforce and an assortment of buildings, infrastructure and equipment, much of which had been neglected for fifteen years in the humid jungle environment. There were no facilities in place for a large workforce, and the infrastructure was crumbling. Cataloguing assets was a large job; it took many weeks to card-index available equipment. About 2,150 buildings had been acquired, many of which were uninhabitable; housing was an early problem, and the
Panama Railway was in a state of decay. However, much equipment (such as locomotives, dredges and other floating equipment) was still serviceable. Although chief engineer
John Findley Wallace was pressured to resume construction,
red tape from Washington stifled his efforts to obtain heavy equipment and caused friction between Wallace and the ICC. 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, chief engineer Wallace resigned abruptly in June 1905.
John Frank Stevens , Chief engineer (1905-07) The ICC brought on a new chairman,
Theodore P. Shonts, and a new chief engineer was appointed,
John Frank Stevens, a self-educated engineer who had built the
Great Northern Railroad. Stevens arrived on July 28, 1905. He quickly realized that serious investment in infrastructure was necessary and determined to upgrade the railway, improve sanitation in
Panama City and
Colón, renovate the old French buildings and build hundreds of new ones for housing. He then began the difficult task of recruiting the large labor force required for construction. Stevens' approach was to press ahead first and obtain approval later. He improved drilling and dirt-removal equipment at the Culebra Cut for greater efficiency, revising the inadequate provisions in place for soil disposal. Stevens was not a member of the ICC; he increasingly viewed its bureaucracy as a serious hindrance, bypassing the commission and sending requests and demands directly to the Roosevelt administration in Washington, DC. , 1907 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, especially
Barbados—called "
Afro-Panamanians"—came in large numbers and many settled permanently. Stevens tried to provide 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. Besides healthier and far better living conditions for the workers, another benefit given to American citizens working on the Canal was a medal for two years of service. Additional bars were added for each two-year period after that. Designed by
Victor D. Brenner and featuring the then-current president they were popularly known as The Roosevelt Medal. A total of 7189 were ultimately issued, with a few people receiving as many as four bars. Certificates are available today.
Health challenges Colonel
William C. Gorgas was appointed chief sanitation officer of the canal construction project in 1904, with the task of controlling infectious diseases (including
yellow fever and
malaria), which had led to thousands of deaths during French construction efforts. Gorgas concentrated on eradicating mosquitoes in the canal zone, extending the approach he had adopted in 1898 to successfully eliminate yellow fever in
Havana. In that campaign, he had concentrated on draining stagnant water where the
Aedes aegypti mosquito bred and quarantining yellow fever patients in screened service rooms. As a consequence, cases in Havana had plunged from 784 to zero within a year. His approach was based on the work of Cuban epidemiologist
Carlos Finlay and American pathologist
Walter Reed, which had shown that yellow fever was spread by the vector mosquito
Aedes aegypti. The approach was controversial, since it contradicted traditional notions that yellow fever was caused by contact with filth.
, the mosquito vector of yellow fever., the mosquito vector of the
malaria parasite. The research of Scottish physician
Sir Ronald Ross had similarly shown that malaria was spread by the
Anopheles mosquito, contrary to traditional ideas that it resulted from noxious vapors. In his campaign against malaria and yellow fever, Gorgas therefore concentrated on eliminating contact with mosquitoes. He invested in extensive sanitation projects, including fumigation of buildings, spraying of insect-breeding areas with oil and larvicide, installation of mosquito netting and window screens, and inspection of every building to ensure sources of stagnant water were removed. He also constructed city water systems to replace the traditional Panamanian custom of keeping containers of water in houses. Despite opposition from the canal commission (one member said his ideas were barmy), Gorgas persisted, and when Stevens arrived, he threw his weight behind the project. Nonetheless, Gorgas continued to face opposition because of the cost- and manpower-intensive nature of the eradication work, as well as entrenched ideas that mosquitoes were irrelevant to disease spread. Canal commission chairman Shonts directly requested President Roosevelt to remove Gorgas from the project because of his costly obsession with mosquitoes. Roosevelt asked advice from two leading physicians in the U.S. He was told that he had a choice between Shonts and Gorgas, and that he would get his canal if he supported Gorgas. Thereafter, Roosevelt gave Gorgas his full backing. After two years of extensive work,
the mosquito-spread diseases were nearly eliminated. Despite the monumental effort, about 5,600 workers died from disease and accidents during the US construction phase of the canal. Of these, the great majority were West Indian laborers, particularly those from Barbados. The number of Americans who died was about 350.
Sea-level or lock-and-lake? sitting on a Bucyrus steam shovel at Culebra Cut, 1906 No decision had been made about whether the canal should be a
lock or a sea-level one; the ongoing excavation would be useful in either case. In late 1905, President Roosevelt commissioned a team of engineers, who were sent to Panama to investigate the relative merits of both types in cost and time. 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. But in 1906 Stevens, who had seen the
Chagres River 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 above sea level. This would create both the largest dam (Gatun Dam) and the largest human-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
Culebra Cut. The plan was essentially similar to that proposed by Adolphe Godin de Lépinay at the Congrès International d'Etudes du Canal Interocéanique in 1879. Goethals divided the engineering and excavation work into three divisions: Atlantic, Central, and Pacific. The Atlantic Division, under Major
William L. Sibert, was responsible for construction of the massive
breakwater at the entrance to
Bahía Limón, the
Gatun locks, and their approach channel, and the immense Gatun Dam. The Pacific Division, under Sydney B. Williamson (the only civilian member of this high-level team), was similarly responsible for the Pacific breakwater in
Panama Bay, the approach channel to the locks, and the
Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks and their associated dams and reservoirs. The Central Division, under Major
David du Bose Gaillard of the
United States Army Corps of Engineers, was assigned one of the most difficult parts: excavating the Culebra Cut through the continental divide to connect Gatun Lake to the Pacific
Panama Canal locks.
Workforce The US relied on a stratified workforce to build the canal. High-level engineering jobs, clerical positions, skilled labor and jobs in supporting industries were generally reserved for Americans, with manual labor primarily by cheap immigrant labor. These jobs were initially filled by Europeans, primarily from Spain, Italy and Greece, many of whom were radical and militant due to political turmoil in Europe. The US then decided to recruit primarily from the British and French West Indies, and these workers provided most of the manual labor on the canal.
Living conditions The Canal Zone originally had minimal facilities for entertainment and relaxation for the canal workers apart from saloons; as a result, alcohol abuse was a great problem. The inhospitable conditions resulted in many American workers returning home each year. A program of improvements was implemented. Clubhouses were built, managed by the
YMCA, with billiard, assembly and reading rooms, bowling alleys, darkrooms for camera clubs,
gymnastic equipment, ice cream parlors, soda fountains and a
circulating library. Member dues were ten dollars a year, with the remaining upkeep (about $7,000 at the larger clubhouses) paid by the ICC. The commission built baseball fields and arranged rail transportation to games; a competitive league soon developed. Semi-monthly Saturday-night dances were held at the Hotel Tivoli, which had a spacious ballroom. These measures influenced life in the Canal Zone; alcohol abuse fell, with saloon business declining by 60 percent. The number of workers leaving the project each year dropped significantly.
US construction excavating the Panama Canal in 1908 The work done thus far was preparation, rather than construction. By the time Goethals took over, the construction infrastructure had been created or overhauled and expanded from the French effort and he was soon able to begin construction in earnest. Goethals divided the project into three divisions: Atlantic, Central and Pacific. The Atlantic Division, under Major
William L. Sibert, was responsible for construction of the
breakwater at the entrance to
Bahía Limón, the
Gatún locks and their approach channel, and the
Gatun Dam. The Pacific Division (under Sydney B. Williamson, the only civilian division head) was responsible for the Pacific entrance to the canal, including a breakwater in Panama Bay, the approach channel, and the
Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks and their associated dams. The Central Division, under Major
David du Bose Gaillard, was responsible for everything in between. It had arguably the project's greatest challenge: excavating the
Culebra Cut (known as the Gaillard Cut from 1915 to 2000), which involved cutting across the
continental divide down to above sea level. By August 1907, per month was being excavated; this set a record for the rainy season; soon afterwards this doubled, before increasing again. At the peak of production, was being excavated per month (the equivalent amount of spoil from the
Channel Tunnel every 3½ months).
Culebra Cut in 1907 One of the greatest barriers to a canal was the
continental divide, which originally rose to above sea level at its highest point. The effort to cut through this barrier of rock was one of the greatest challenges faced by the project. Goethals arrived at the canal with Major
David du Bose Gaillard of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Gaillard was placed in charge of the canal's Central Division, which stretched from the Pedro Miguel locks to the
Gatun Dam, and dedicated himself to getting the Culebra Cut (as it was then known) excavated. The scale of the work was massive. 6 thousand men worked in the cut, drilling holes in which a total of of
dynamite were placed to break up the rock (which was then removed by as many as 160 trains per day). Landslides were frequent, due to the
oxidation and weakening of the rock's underlying iron
strata. Although the scale of the job and the frequent, unpredictable slides generated chaos, Gaillard provided quiet, clear-sighted leadership. On May 26, 1913,
Bucyrus steam shovels made a passage through the Culebra Cut at the level of the canal bottom. The French effort had reduced the summit to over a relatively narrow width; the Americans had lowered this to above sea level over a greater width, and had excavated over of material. About of this material was in addition to the planned excavation, due to landslides. Dry excavation ended on September 10, 1913; a January slide had added of earth, but it was decided that this loose material would be removed by dredging when the cut was flooded.
Dams Two
artificial lakes are key parts of the canal:
Gatun and Miraflores Lakes. Four dams were constructed to create them. Two small dams at Miraflores impound Miraflores Lake, and a dam at Pedro Miguel encloses the south end of the
Culebra Cut (essentially an arm of Lake Gatun). The
Gatun Dam is the main dam blocking the original course of the
Chagres River, creating Gatun Lake. The Miraflores dams are an earth dam connecting the Miraflores Locks in the west and a concrete spillway dam east of the locks. The concrete dam has eight
floodgates, similar to those on the Gatun
spillway. The earthen, Pedro Miguel dam extends from a hill in the west to the lock. Its face is protected by rock
riprap at the water level. The largest and most challenging of the dams is the Gatun Dam. This
earthen dam, thick at the base and long along the top, was the largest of its kind in the world when the canal opened.
Locks The construction of a canal with locks required the excavation of more than of material over and above the 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 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 line 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. The original lock canal plan called for a two-step set of locks at Sosa Hill and a long Sosa Lake extending to Pedro Miguel. In late 1907, it was decided to move the Sosa Hill locks further inland to Miraflores, mostly because the new site provided a more stable construction foundation. The resulting small lake Miraflores became a fresh water supply for Panama City. Building the locks began with the first concrete laid at Gatun on August 24, 1909. The Gatun locks are built into a cutting into a hill bordering the lake, requiring the excavation of of material (mostly rock). The locks were made of of concrete, with an extensive system of electric railways and
aerial lifts transporting concrete to the lock-construction sites. The Pacific-side locks were finished first: the single flight at Pedro Miguel in 1911, and Miraflores in May 1913. The seagoing
tugboat Gatun, an Atlantic-entrance tug used to haul barges, traversed the Gatun locks on September 26, 1913. The trip was successful, although the valves were controlled manually; the central control board was not yet ready. Between 1912 and 1914 there was
a controversy about the tolls for the canal.
Opening On October 10, 1913, President
Woodrow Wilson sent a signal from the
White House by
telegraph, triggering an explosion that destroyed the Gamboa Dike. This flooded the Culebra Cut, thereby joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans via the Panama Canal. The construction of the canal was completed in 1914, 401 years after Panama was first crossed overland by the Europeans in
Vasco Núñez de Balboa's party of
conquistadores. The United States spent almost $500 million (roughly equivalent to $ billion in ) to finish the project. This was by far the largest American engineering project to date. Throughout this time,
Ernest "Red" Hallen was hired by the
Isthmian Canal Commission to document the progress of the work. On January 7, 1914, the
Alexandre La Valley (a floating crane built by
Lobnitz & Company and launched in 1887) became the first ship to make a complete transit of the Panama Canal under its own steam after working its way across during the final stages of construction. As construction wound down, the canal team began to disperse. Thousands of workers were laid off, and entire towns were disassembled or demolished. Chief sanitary officer
William C. Gorgas, who left to fight pneumonia in the South African gold mines, became surgeon general of the Army. On April 1, 1914, the Isthmian Canal Commission disbanded, and the zone was governed by a Canal Zone Governor; the first governor was
George Washington Goethals. SS
Cristobal (a cargo and passenger ship built by
Maryland Steel, and launched in 1902 as SS
Tremont) on 3 August 1914, was the first ship to transit the canal from ocean to ocean. Although a large celebration was planned for the canal's opening, the outbreak of
World War I forced the cancellation of the main festivities and it became a modest local affair. The Panama Railway steamship , piloted by Captain John A. Constantine (the canal's first
pilot), made the first official transit on August 15, 1914. With no international dignitaries in attendance, Goethals followed the
Ancon progress by railroad. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 caused a
severe drop in traffic along
Chilean ports due to shifts in maritime trade routes, despite the closure of the canal for nearly seven months after a landslide in the Culebra Cut on 18 September 1915. The
burgeoning sheep farming business in southern Patagonia suffered a significant setback by the change in trade routes, as did the economy of the
Falkland Islands. In 1914,
steam shovels from the Panama Canal were purchased and put to use in
Chuquicamata copper mine of northern Chile. ==Summary==