Aspirations of building a canal through the isthmus of Panama go as far back as the 1500s. King Charles of Spain and Count Ferdinand de Lessep of France both made inroads into connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Two men in front of canal locks gates. (DailyMail)
The idealized Panama Canal offered a tantalizing shortcut from Europe to Asia. Unfortunately, for those enterprises, the scale of the project overwhelmed them. Not to mention, endless cases of yellow fever and malaria that put a disease-ridden end to their lofty ambitions.
America Steps In
More than 60 million pounds of dynamite helped create the canal.
It took the United States and President Theodore Roosevelt to throw the country’s considerable resources at the daunting project. Nevertheless, it took over $350 million, which translates to $10,223,049,882 in today’s money, and thousands of lives to complete one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
Cost Vs. Reward
Building a canal out of nothing is as hard as it sounds. (chimuadventures)
For America, creating the Panama Canal would cut over 9,000 miles for ships sailing from the east to west coasts. European ships could shave about 2,300 miles going to East Asia. By cutting down the miles, the economic gains could be counted in the hundreds of million dollars annually.
Biting Off More Than You Can Chew
In 1928, Richard Halliburton swam the length of the Panama Canal. Like everyone else he paid a toll based on weight. His whopping 36 cents set a record for cheapest crossing.
However, the project itself posed massive obstacles that sank both the Spanish and French. In fact, the minds behind the Suez Canal in Egypt and the Eiffel Tower faced criminal charges of fraud and mismanagement stemming from their attempts. The French sunk more than $260 million and removed over 70 million cubic yards of earth only to abandon the project, twice.
Locks Vs. Sea Level Canal
40,000 men were hired to take on the massive project. (American History USA)
Undoubtedly, the biggest blunder the French and eventually the Americans made was attempting to build the canal at sea level as opposed to using locks. Locks function as a door to the canal, literally physically lifting ships out of the ocean and up onto the canal. Essentially these multiple sets of locks separate the ocean from the canal by roughly 80 feet. Attempting to recreate the Suez Canal, which functions at sea level, torpedoed the French and nearly the Americans when they ignored the warnings of France’s failures.
Mosquitoes
Landslides and mosquitoes ranked as the greatest dangers for workers.
Insects might not sound like much of an obstacle. But in the early 20th century, mosquitoes ravaged any workforce near the canal with a tidal wave of yellow fever and malaria. Back then, they didn’t even realize it was the mosquitoes who spread the diseases! Between the French and American workforces, over 25,000 workers died, the majority to diseases carried by the blood-sucking bane of the outdoors.
Dr. William Gorgas theorized that mosquitoes were the cause of the virulent disease and crusaded to eradicate the bothersome airborne vampires. By comprehensively fumigating thousands of houses and purging pools of water, cases of yellow fever and malaria dropped precipitously.
An Exacting Project
The most expensive crossing to date? A Disney cruise in 2008 paid $330,000. (Daily Mail)
French and American attempts at building the Panama Canal saw more strikes than a bowling alley. Unpredictable weather, sudden landslides, diseases along with terrible housing made working on the Panama Canal a hateful job. To make matters worse, even keeping a chief engineer became difficult. John Wallace lasted about a year before bowing out under the pressure of faulty french machinery and an unhappy labor force.
After him John Stevens took over, hiring West Indian workers and bringing in new machines. His biggest contribution was convincing Roosevelt that a lock canal would function best with the terrain. However, he too quit in 1907 unable to handle the pressure. Eventually, Army Corps engineer Lt. Col. George Washington Goethals brought in a no-nonsense approach by immediately crushing a work strike upon taking the job. By improving the workforce’s living conditions, better morale and health helped speed things up.
The Panama Canal Opens
Today, the Canal transports 4 percent of world trade and 16 percent of total U.S.-borne trade.
In May of 1914, President Woodrow Wilson sent a telegraph that ignited an explosion thousands of miles away. That explosion blew the Gamboa dike, flooding the final stretch of the passageway. On August 15, the canal finally opened, ending the most expensive construction project in US history to that point. 3.4 million cubic meters of cement went into building the locks while workers removed 240 million cubic yards of rock and dirt alone. In 2010 the Canal saw the 1 millionth ship pass through its waterway. It was a historic moment for a project that went from nightmare to a godsend.
