15 Astonishing Details About the Panama Canal

Stretching 50 miles, the Panama Canal was an international endeavor spanning decades, designed to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and revolutionize worldwide trade. Completed in 1914, it played a pivotal role in propelling the United States to economic dominance. Here’s a closer look.

In the 1500s, Spain explored the possibility of creating a navigable passage through Panama.

In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa became the first European to lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean, claiming the surrounding territory and waters for Spain. Despite his eventual execution for treason, Balboa’s discovery prompted King Charles I (also known as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) to order the governor of Panama in 1534 to find a route across the Isthmus of Panama via the Chagres River. The project was abandoned due to the dense, impassable rainforests. The Panama Railroad, inaugurated in 1855, later became the main transit route across the isthmus.

Following the success of the Suez Canal, French engineers attempted a similar feat in Panama.

For centuries, the only viable route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was around Cape Horn in southern Chile, adding an extra 8000 nautical miles to voyages from Europe or the Americas to Asia. After the completion of the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1869, French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps led a team of engineers to construct a sea-level canal in Panama starting in 1880. However, the project faced relentless challenges, including extreme heat, torrential rains, landslides, and deadly diseases. The loss of 20,000 workers by 1888 led to the project's collapse and withdrawal of funding.

The United States essentially took Panama from Colombia.

Following its independence from Spain in 1821, Panama joined the Republic of Gran Colombia, a union that also encompassed Venezuela, Ecuador, and portions of Peru, Guyana, and Brazil. After the dissolution of Gran Colombia in 1830, Panama became part of New Granada, later renamed Colombia. As the canal project stalled, the U.S. Isthmian Canal Commission was formed in 1899 to explore a potential waterway, and the U.S. acquired France’s canal assets for $40 million in 1900.

The Hay-Herrán Treaty, introduced in 1903, aimed to compensate Colombia for U.S. access to the isthmus. However, the Colombian Senate rejected it on August 12, 1903. In response, President Theodore Roosevelt blocked Colombia’s use of the railroad and deployed warships to Panama’s coasts. With this implicit U.S. backing, Panama declared independence from Colombia on November 3, 1903. On November 18, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and French engineer Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, who had championed Panamanian independence and was appointed as its minister plenipotentiary, signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, granting the U.S. rights to build the canal. When Panamanian lawmakers hesitated to ratify the treaty, Bunau-Varilla threatened to suppress opposition with Colombian forces.

Theodore Roosevelt played a pivotal role in the construction of the canal.

In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant formed the Inter-Oceanic Canal Commission to explore potential routes across Central America, dispatching seven expeditions to Panama. However, he ultimately deemed the project too costly. Theodore Roosevelt, who assumed the presidency after William McKinley’s assassination in 1901, emphasized the canal’s importance in a speech to Congress, stating, “No single great material work remaining on this continent holds such significance for the American people.”

Beyond acquiring French assets, Roosevelt facilitated a $10 million payment to Panama and committed to an annual annuity of $250,000. He also created the Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) on March 3, 1904, urging its leaders to “make the dirt fly.”

The first chief engineer of the canal resigned unexpectedly.

In June 1904, the U.S. resumed the canal project where Ferdinand de Lesseps had halted. Chief engineer John Findley Wallace, earning $25,000 annually—the highest government salary aside from the president’s—took command but soon grew disillusioned due to inadequate infrastructure, outdated equipment, and rampant tropical diseases that decimated the workforce. He stepped down within a year.

The second chief engineer abandoned the original plans entirely.

John Stevens, the new chief engineer renowned for his contributions to the Great Northern Railway, prioritized halting excavation to overhaul the rail system, enabling it to transport massive amounts of soil and rock. Stevens also abandoned the sea-level canal concept, proposing instead a lock system featuring a dam and an artificial lake, which the ICC approved. He resigned from the demanding role on February 12, 1907.

The canal project reshaped the landscape on a monumental scale.

George Washington Goethals, an Army colonel with expertise in lock construction from his work with the Army Corps of Engineers, succeeded Wallace and Stevens. His primary responsibilities included damming the Chagres River and excavating the Culebra Cut, an 8-mile section through Gamboa and Pedro Miguel. Also known as the Gaillard Cut, named after Army engineer Lt. Col. David Gaillard, this challenging terrain required 6000 laborers using steam shovels, dynamite, and drills to remove over 180 million cubic yards of earth.

The sanitation officer might have been the most crucial member of the team.

Dr. William Gorgas, the chief medical officer, was among the first Americans to arrive after the U.S. took over the canal project. His mission was to combat malaria and other diseases that had devastated French workers. Initially, Gorgas’s superiors under Wallace dismissed the theory that mosquitoes caused yellow fever and malaria, but Stevens fully supported his efforts. Sanitation teams installed screens, fumigated homes, and provided running water to local towns, significantly improving public health.

By 1905, yellow fever was under control, but malaria remained a formidable challenge. Gorgas and his wife Marie likened the fight against malaria to “battling all the beasts of the jungle.” Through clearing swamps, burning vegetation, constructing ditches, and extensive use of insecticides, the malarial infection rate dropped dramatically from 7.45 cases per 1000 people in 1906 to just 0.30 cases per 1000 by 1913.

Thousands of laborers from the Caribbean were employed in the canal's construction.

Amid intense heat, 40,000 workers provided the manual labor needed to construct the canal. The majority hailed from Caribbean islands like Barbados, Martinique, and Guadeloupe. The U.S. established a recruitment office in Barbados, drawing a significant portion of the island’s male workforce, with estimates suggesting 30 to 40 percent of its adult men were enlisted for the canal project.

Floods and landslides repeatedly hindered progress.

Addressing the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Stevens emphasized the necessity of abandoning a sea-level canal, stating, “the primary challenge in constructing any canal there is managing the Chagres River.” French engineers had faced severe flooding during their unsuccessful attempt, and the notorious Cucaracha Landslide in 1907 dumped 500,000 cubic yards of debris into the Culebra Cut. Further landslides in 1912 required 4.5 months of excavation to clear.

Engineers created the largest artificial lake on the planet.

The lock system’s design necessitated constructing a dam across the Chagres River, which intersected the proposed canal path and experienced fluctuating currents due to heavy rainfall. Completed in 1913, the dam formed Gatún Lake, the world’s largest artificial lake, spanning over 20 miles of the canal route. Engineers also designed Gatún’s locks with dual chambers to handle two-way traffic, each measuring 110 feet by 1000 feet. The system operates on gravity: water flows through culverts into the locks, lifting ships 85 feet to Gatún Lake’s surface and then lowering them back to sea level on the opposite side.

The canal was officially opened in 1914.

In early August 1914, Germany declared war on Russia and France, marking the beginning of World War I. The Panama Canal officially opened on August 15, though the planned grand ceremony, which was to feature an international fleet of warships and foreign dignitaries, was subdued due to the global conflict. The S.S. Ancon, an American cargo ship, became the first vessel to officially transit the canal.

The Panama Canal was the costliest project in U.S. history.

Despite coming in $23 million under the 1907 budget estimate, the $375 million project was the most expensive undertaking in American history. This figure included $10 million paid to Panama and $40 million to France. Initial tolls were set at $.90 per cargo ton, a rate that remained unchanged until it was increased to $1.08 in 1974.

It is hailed as a landmark achievement in engineering.

In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers unveiled its list of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The Panama Canal, described by author David McCullough as “one of the greatest human accomplishments in history,” was included alongside the Channel Tunnel linking England and France, Toronto’s CN Tower, New York City’s Empire State Building, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam spanning Brazil and Paraguay, and the Netherlands’ North Sea Protection Works.

The Panamanian government officially took ownership of the canal in 1999.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty, ratified by the Senate in 1978. This agreement nullified prior treaties between the U.S. and Panama and established a 20-year transition period during which the U.S. would transfer canal management to Panama and grant it sovereignty over the canal zone. On December 31, 1999, Panama formally assumed control of the canal.