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Construction of the Panama Canal; One of the World's Great Engineering Achievements

Built between 1904 and 1914 the Panama Canal has provided passage for over 800,000 boats between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The building of the Panama Canal was and still is one of the world's greatest engineering projects. United States engineers and doctors had to excavate over 240 million cubic yards of earth of rock and dirt, and find a place for it, as well as overcome tropical diseases that had killed over 20,000 workers in the French effort to build a canal.

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is the system of man made channels, locks, dams, and artificial lakes that connect the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama. Since its completion in 1914 the Panama Canal has allowed shipping to cross the fifty mile wide isthmus at the narrowest part of the Americas. The Panama Canal locks allow ships to enter the system from either ocean and to be raised to the level of artificial Lake Gatun, 26 meters above sea level, to transit central Panama before being lowered to sea level on the other side.

Construction of the Panama Canal included damming the Chagras River (Gatun Dam) so that a central valley filled with runoff from Panama's tropical rains thus forming Lake Gatun. In addition a 7.8 mile long, manmade valley was blasted and dug through a ridge in the mountains of central Panama to connect Lake Gatun with the Pacific side of the canal system. This valley is known as the Gaillard Cut or Culebra Cut.

The Panama Canal allows ships to avoid the Drake Passage around Cape Horn at the tip of South America saving up to 8000 miles for shipping that originates north of the canal.

History

The history of the canal to cross the Isthmus of Panama goes back to the 16th century. A working plan for a canal was drawn up as early as 1529 but no attempts were ever made to dig a canal until 1880. A French company, organized by the builder of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, started work in 1880 on a sea level canal. This effort was unsuccessful and left over 20,000 workers dead from tropical diseases, primarily yellow fever and malaria. Initially the French effort focused on a sea level canal. A tunnel was planned to get past the central mountains of Panama. Later a set of locks was planned but eventually the effort failed and French investors were left with unusable property which they eventually sold to the United States for its Panama Canal construction.

Panama Canal Construction 1904 to 1914

The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed with Panama in 1903. This treaty gave the United States the right to build and operate a canal. Americans arrived for the Panama Canal construction effort in 1904. The first years were spent in preparation as American engineers decided on the construction of a lock canal, and the next years were spent developing construction facilities for a Panama Canal and eradicating tropical diseases in the area.

In 1909 Panama Canal construction began. The building of the Panama Canal was one of the largest construction projects of all time. U.S. engineers excavated nearly 240 million cubic yards of earth and had to find places to put it as the torrential rain in Panama caused constant mudslides. The final cost of Panama Canal construction was close to $400 million in building the 40-mile-long canal. The usual figure of fifty miles includes the dredged seabed at both end of the canal.

Although several boats passed through the canal in 1914, constant mudslides required re-excavation as Panama Canal construction wound down. Finally, on August 15, 1914, the construction of the Panama Canal was officially over and the Panama Canal was officially opened to traffic. Coincidentally the Canal opened the same month as the beginning of World War I.

The Panama Canal Authority (Autoridad del Canal de Panamá, ACP), which is the autonomous Panama government entity that runs the canal has started another Panama Canal Construction project, the Panama Canal Expansion. In the next ten years ACP will spend over $5 Billion to add a second set of locks, widen and deepen channels, and roughly double Panama Canal capacity.