Demolition, disease, and death: Building the Panama Canal - Alex Gendler
In the middle of the 19th century,
the California gold rush brought thousands
of settlers to America’s west coast.
But finding gold may have been easier
than transporting it back east.
The only hope for avoiding
a grueling six month wagon journey
was to travel the narrowest portion
of the continent—
the 48-kilometer Isthmus of Panama.
By 1855, a railroad spanning the region
significantly shortened to the trip,
but unloading and reloading ships
at each port cost time and money.
To truly connect these two bodies of water
shipping interests needed a canal—
a continuous maritime passage
through the isthmus.
The first attempt at this colossal
construction project was taken up in 1881
by French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps.
De Lesseps had supervised construction
of Egypt's Suez Canal,
but his success made him overconfident.
He insisted on digging the canal
at sea level,
even though it required boring
directly through
the Continental Divide mountain range.
Futile excavation efforts were buried
under constant landslides.
And since the diplomat had only
visited the site briefly
during Panama’s dry season,
his workers were unprepared for
torrential storms, venomous jungle fauna,
and tropical diseases.
After spending $287 million
and losing a staggering 22,000 lives,
the French abandoned the project.
The United States had been considering
building a canal through Nicaragua,
but at this point, the chance to succeed
where France failed was tempting.
Panamanian leaders were also eager
to complete a canal
which would bring their country
business and prestige.
However, Panama was still a part
of Colombia at the time,
and the country was stalling negotiations
with the U.S.
Sensing an opportunity,
President Teddy Roosevelt
went straight to the Panamanians.
With encouragement and military support
from the U.S.,
Panama launched a coup in 1903.
Within days, they became
an independent nation
and signed a treaty to begin
construction of the canal.
Just over a decade after the French left,
the Americans were ready to dig in—
and they were determined to avoid
their predecessor’s mistakes.
Instead of cutting the mountain
down to sea level,
they would raise the sea up the mountain.
The plan was to build massive steel gates
separating the canal into multiple
chambers with different water levels.
As a ship passed through each
successive gate would open,
lowering the water level
in the next chamber,
while raising the ship
and allowing it to move on.
The design called for five
of these so-called canal locks—
three on the Atlantic side
and two on the Pacific,
raising traversing ships 26 meters
above sea level.
Operating this lock system would require
a massive reservoir of water.
And fortunately, the low-lying Chagres
river valley provided a natural solution.
By building a dam across the gap
where the river flowed out to sea,
the entire valley could be flooded.
At 32 meters high
and over 800 meters wide,
the Gatun Dam would be larger
than any built before.
With this innovative plan,
the Americans didn’t need to excavate
the entire mountain,
but rather, just the pathway
for the canal itself.
Still, the work was staggering.
Even after progress made by the French,
it took over nine years for 24,000 workers
to blow up, shovel,
and drill out the Culebra Cut—
a roughly 14 kilometer passageway
through the Continental Divide.
The railway, now upgraded and rerouted
to follow the canal,
carted away over 76 million cubic meters
of excavated rock
to be used at the Gatun Dam site.
Construction was only half the battle.
Leading army officials struggled
to maintain infrastructure and sanitation,
but accidents and diseases took
the lives of 5,000 workers—
mostly Black Caribbean migrants.
Then, in the fall of 1913,
the moment finally came.
A telegraph signal from President Woodrow
Wilson triggered a dike explosion,
flooding the Culebra Cut and joining
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Today, nearly 14,000 vessels travel
through the isthmus annually—
each in under 12 hours.
The canal remains Panama’s
chief source of revenue;
and since the country gained ownership
of the passage in 1999,
it has also become a source
of national pride.
