The Panama Canal

“Making the dirt fly”

The Spanish American war pointed out the need for a canal through the Western Hemisphere.

The question was “where should it be”.

One possible site was Nicaragua. Its large lake made it attractive.

The other site was Panama. It was the shortest distance to build.

In 1902 Mount Pelee, a volcano in Nicaragua, erupted, killing 30,000 people. The decision was made.

Ferdinand De-lesseps, a Frenchman, had built the Suez Canal in ten years, and he next took on Panama.

The Suez Canal was a marvel, but the land was flat and a desert.

Panama was mountainous and tropical.

There would be a sea-level canal dug along the path of the Panama Railroad, 50 miles long, Suez was more than 100.

De Lesseps estimated that the job would cost about $132 million, and take twelve years to complete. (1882-1894)

More than 6,000 men had died building the railroad, but that fact was ignored as it had made $7,000,000 in its first six years.

When the French abandoned the project they had spent over twenty years and $260,000,000.

In 1902 the United States bought the right to build from France and began to negotiate a treaty with Colombia.

Panama was a province of Colombia, and the treaty was worked out, but the Colombian government didn’t like the terms.

When they asked for more money the Panamanians, led by a French-Panamanian businessman, revolted and declared independence.

The battle for Panama lasted only a few hours. Colombian soldiers in Colón were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms;

American war ships were waiting off shore.

We recognized Panama within hours.

Hay Bunau-Varilla Treaty

The US got a 10 mile wide strip of land

The US had complete sovereignty over the zone

The US paid $10 million to Panama

Teddy Roosevelt wanted the canal underway before the 1904 elections, so he pushed for immediate construction.

Roosevelt would later boast that "...I took the isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me."  

The canal was built, but not before more than 30,000 people died of malaria and yellow fever and thousands more of work related accidents.

The Panama Canal opened officially on August 15, 1914. The world scarcely noticed.

German troops were driving across Belgium toward Paris; the newspapers relegated Panama to their back pages.

The greatest engineering project in the history of the world had been dwarfed by the totality of World War I.