History of the Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a major ship canal located in the Isthmus of Panama in Central America. Construction was begun in 1904 and finished ten years later, in 1914. Today it is extremely important in world trade, with about 14,000 ships passing through it every year.

Charles the V, Roman Emperor and king of Spain, first suggested a canal through Central America in 1524. Spain had business interests in Ecuador and Peru, and a canal would greatly shorten the arduous trip a ship was forced to take around the southern tip of South America. Plans were developed in 1529, but ultimately were put on permanent hold.

In 1879, a French contractor named Ferdinand de Lesseps proposed a lockless sea canal through Panama. Having succeeded in building the Suez Canal through Egypt ten years earlier, de Lesseps felt convinced the Panama Canal would be relatively easy to construct.

The bold plan was doomed to fail. Inexperienced workers, diseases such as yellow fever and malaria, as well as the difficulty of building a lockless canal in that area all contributed to the demise of de Lesseps’ scheme in 1893.

In 1899, the United States Congress proposed the establishment of the Isthmian Canal Commission to, essentially, attempt to succeed where the French did not. Originally, the canal was to be built across Nicaragua, until William Nelson Cromwell (a member of a law firm and also a lobbyist) convinced Congress to reverse its decision and select Panama instead.

Theodore Roosevelt (our twenty-sixth president) and Chief Engineer John Frank Stevens oversaw the acquisition of the land and equipment needed to continue construction. After helping Panama obtain independence from Columbia, the work on the canal officially began on May 4th, 1904.

Significant health measures were taken to ensure that U.S. workers would not be exposed to the diseases that crippled the French laborers. Outdated French equipment was replaced with more efficient, larger machinery. These actions, along with the appointment of George Washington Goethals as Chief Engineer of the canal in 1907, led to the canal being finished two years ahead of schedule in 1914. The Panama Canal was officially opened on August 15 of that same year.

Control of the canal was ceded to the Panama Canal Authority in 1999 after relations between Panama and the United States grew strained. The canal today remains a neutral trade route, open to ships of all nationalities.

One of the most notable actions taken by the Canal Authority was to invest over 1 billion dollars in updating the canal to meet the requirements of modern ships. Traffic management is being significantly improved, ship routes are being widened and deepened, and extra electricity produced by the large hydroelectric dams flanking the canal is auctioned off to acquire much-needed funds.

These measures will ensure that the historic Panama Canal remains a staple in world trade for many years to come.

The document system will not allow me to include the sources--for that, I apologize.