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7 September 2023 — A Very Brief Look at the Big Ditch

“When they started to build, they said [the canal] would bring New York a thousand miles closer to San Francisco. Why it’s ridiculous. We spent four hundred million dollars, the canal is nearly finished, and New York is still in the same place.”

—The Speaker of the House: a monologue, Part 3, by Aaron Hoffman. 1914

It was on 7 September 1977 that President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian Chief of Government Omar Torrijos signed the Permanent Neutrality Treaty and the Panama Canal Treaty, declaring the Panama Canal neutral and open to vessels of all nations, and establishing the date that Panama would take full control of the canal: 31 December 1999. What a fitting time to take a few minutes to look at the engineering feat that had such a deep impact on shipping and continues to affect our supply chain today.

The idea of a canal connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific, shaving about 8,000 miles off of the journey and sparing seafarers the challenges of rounding Cape Horn, had been considered by earlier powers; King Charles V of Spain went so far as to order a survey to gauge the practicality of such a project. He was told that it couldn’t be done. In the 19^thcentury, the rise in manufacturing fueled increased shipping to get goods and materials to distant markets, and a shortcut in shipping times appealed once again.

While a site in Nicaragua was one of those considered, the French company Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique, incorporated in 1881 for the purpose of building a canal to bridge the oceans, selected the location in Panama, which was at the time part of Colombia, under the name Republic of New Granada. Chief engineer of the project was Ferdinand de Lesseps, known as the driving force behind the successful Suez Canal. De Lesseps proposed building a sea-level-style cut, similar to the Suez Canal. However, unlike the flat and dry terrain surrounding the Suez Canal, the proposed Panamanian route was mountainous and the surrounding jungle had a typical rainy season of eight months of the year—a season that de Lesseps hadn’t witnessed in person. The alternative option for the canal would have been to have constructed locks to raise and lower ships over the higher terrain, but De Lesseps prevailed. In his book The Story of Panama and the Canal C. H. Forbes-Lindsay described the conference that convened to set out a plan for the canal’s construction:



The proceedings were pre-arranged and those who knew most about the subject in hand found that their opinions were least in demand. The [decision to create a sea-level canal] was put to the vote and carried by a small margin, the engineers who voted affirmatively being in a minority…. Ferdinand de Lesseps… took the chair and dominated the sessions of the Conference, and there is no doubt that his will was the most potent influence in bringing about its decision. Several members, who were radically opposed to the conclusions, rather than declare their difference from the opinions of a man of the great distinction and high reputation that de Lesseps enjoyed at the time, absented themselves when the final vote was taken. 

A stereographic image of the work site. Photo: PD

The French began digging in 1882; after six years and expenditures estimated between $260 million and $300 million and an extremely high death toll, the company could obtain no more funding and the operation folded in a cloud of allegations of financial misdeeds. A second French company later formed and subsequently fizzled. The United States bought the French assets in the project and negotiated a deal with the newly-formed Republic of Panama, and decided to try its hand at the job. The opening ceremony for the American effort was held on 4 May 1904.

One of the many challenges to the canal construction was the prevalence of tropical illnesses such as malaria and yellow fever. The failed French effort had lost over 22,000 workers, most of them to disease.  Author Frederic J. Haskin noted in his 1913 book The Panama Canal:

[T]he French were pitiably at the mercy of the diseases of the Tropics. The science of preventative medicine had not been sufficiently developed to enable the French to know that mosquitoes and filth were enemies that must be conquered and controlled… Yellow fever and malaria killed engineers and common laborers alike. The very hospitals, which the French provided for the care of the sick, were turned into centers of infections for yellow fever, because the beds were set in pans of water [intended to keep ants from crawling up the bedframes] which served as ideal breeding places for the death-bearing stegomyia.

Thanks to actions such as paving the streets to eliminate the expanses of standing water such as the one pictured here in the city of Colon, the authorities were able to get mosquito-borne diseases under control. Photo: PD

Recognizing the need to save lives and also reduce the loss of worker productivity to severe illness (not to mention worker flight from the project in fear of the horrors of yellow fever), the American Ithsmian Canal Commission, charged with overseeing the canal construction, established a Sanitary Department, led by US Army chief surgeon William Crawford Gorgas. Acting on the fairly recent science that malaria and yellow fever were transmitted by mosquitoes, Gorgas had led efforts in 1901 to control tropical diseases during the American occupation of Havana, Cuba, by initiating regulations that called for screening houses and reducing mosquito breeding through drainage improvements. These efforts eliminated yellow fever and reduced the incidence of malaria in that city. Gorgas approached Panama with a similar zeal. Although some members of the Isthmian Canal Commission dismissed the possibility of a connection between mosquito population and disease and resented the massive cost of the infrastructure improvements, Gorgas enjoyed the support of President Theodore Roosevelt and his directives prevailed. The community surrounding the canal zone was free of yellow fever by 1906, and he enjoyed a similar victory over malaria within a few years. 

The many practical challenges in constructing the Panama Canal included breaking up rock, moving large rocks, and moving the spoil (earth and rock being cleared from the canal) to a location far from the construction site. This video illustrates some of the inventions and techniques used to do the job.

While the American team had begun by trying to use the French design plan, it was soon decided to institute a series of locks on either side of a man-made lake, Lake Gatun. It took ten years, employing the labor of approximately 40,000 workmen, facing the dangers of disease in the early years, as well as the risk of landslides and death or injury from the use of dynamite. An oral history documentary was produced about the experiences of the workmen, called The Diggers. It would be worth tracking down a copy to hear their stories, told in their own words.

Get a glimpse of the heavy machinery, the massive lock gates, and some of the notable personages of the project in this video on the occasion of President Roosevelt's visit to the site.

The Panama Canal opened officially on 15 August 1914, when SS Ancon traversed from one ocean to another. On 26 June 2017 an expansion of the Canal was opened, a special set of locks to accommodate even larger ships. Whereas the maximum size for a ship capable of making the crossing had been called Panamax, a new standard, New Panamax, determines the size of ships that can pass through today.

The Panama Canal is once again in the news this summer; lower-than-usual rainfall in the region has lowered the level of the waters in Lake Gatun, which feed the locks. Each ship transit through the locks require 51 million gallons of water, drawn from the lake. When it loses too much water, the lake becomes difficult for ships to navigate. To address the loss, the canal authority has reduced the number of transits permitted each day, resulting in a significant backlog of vessels waiting to use the canal. The supply-chain impact demonstrates to us just how important this century-old engineering marvel remains to our economy today.

Extra Credit

“One Hundred Years of Shipping Through the Isthmus of Panama” – Sea History

“The Construction of the Panama Canal 1913–1914”

“Panama Canal Low Water Levels: What This Means For Global Trade?”

Sea History Today is written by Shelley Reid, NMHS senior staff writer. Past issues can be read online by clicking here.