Why the United States chose a lock canal (1904–1906)
The U.S. canal project began by re-evaluating the design the French had committed to in 1879. The French had attempted a sea-level canal from 1881 to 1887 before accepting, in October 1887, that a lock-canal design was the only feasible option. The U.S. engineers, led first by the Walker Commission of 1901, then by the Isthmian Canal Commission from 1904, and most decisively by a succession of three chief engineers (John F. Wallace, John F. Stevens, and George W. Goethals), confirmed the lock-canal decision within two years of taking over the project, and laid out a three-lock flight at Gatun, a single lock at Pedro Miguel, and a two-lock flight at Miraflores [2].
The lock-canal decision was driven by engineering realities that the French sea-level plan had ignored. The decisive factor was the Culebra Cut, the roughly eight-mile (13-kilometre) excavation through the central cordillera, which the French had begun in 1882, whose unstable geology made a sea-level channel impracticable, since the deeper the cut, the worse the landslides. A lock canal, by contrast, could carry ships across the isthmus at a higher elevation, damming the flood-prone Chagres River to form Gatun Lake as an artificial bridge between the Atlantic and Pacific lock flights and keeping the Culebra Cut at a far more manageable depth [2].
The lock-canal design was also politically achievable. The Spooner Act of June 28, 1902 had authorised the purchase of the French assets for $40 million and set the U.S. canal project in motion, and after a protracted debate between advocates of a sea-level canal and a lock canal, the lock design was adopted on the recommendation of the Isthmian Canal Commission and President Theodore Roosevelt. The canal that resulted links deep water on the Atlantic to deep water on the Pacific through the three-lock Gatun flight on one side and the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks on the other [2].
Construction and the labor force (1904–1914)
Construction was directed from the Canal Zone (the ten-mile-wide strip of land granted to the United States in perpetuity under the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903, which also conveyed a one-time $10 million payment to Panama and an annual annuity of $250,000). Once Goethals took over he divided the project into three geographic divisions: the Atlantic Division (the Gatun locks and the Atlantic entrance), the Central Division (the Culebra Cut), and the Pacific Division (the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks and the Pacific entrance). The Atlantic Division was led by Major William L. Sibert; the Central Division by Major David du Bose Gaillard of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and the Pacific Division by Sydney B. Williamson, the only civilian division head. The chief engineer for the full project was first John F. Wallace (1904-1905), then John F. Stevens (1905-1907), and finally George W. Goethals (1907-1914), and the choice of Goethals in 1907 was the turning point in the construction schedule [1] [2].
The labour force was stratified by skill and origin. High-level engineering, clerical, and skilled positions were generally reserved for Americans, while the heavy manual labour was carried out by immigrant workers. The Americans initially recruited Europeans, primarily from Spain, Italy, and Greece, but then shifted to recruiting heavily from the British and French West Indies, and the great majority of the workers who died on the project were West Indian labourers, particularly those from Barbados. Living conditions for these labourers were crowded and basic, and housing was an early and persistent problem on the project [2].
The death toll during the U.S. construction period is recorded in detail: about 5,600 workers died from disease and accidents during the American construction phase, the great majority of them West Indian labourers and particularly those from Barbados, with only about 350 American deaths. The sanitation program that held the toll far below the French disaster was led by Colonel William C. Gorgas, appointed chief sanitation officer in 1904, who concentrated on eradicating the mosquitoes that spread yellow fever and malaria (an approach drawn from the recent discovery that mosquitoes, rather than noxious air, transmitted these diseases). After roughly two years of intensive mosquito-control work the mosquito-borne diseases were nearly eliminated, and the U.S. effort became one of the canonical case studies in the application of tropical public health to a major industrial project [2].
The opening of the canal (15 August 1914)
The first complete transit of the Panama Canal was made on 7 January 1914 by the Alexandre La Valley, a floating crane built by Lobnitz & Company in 1887 that worked its way across during the final stages of construction, becoming the first vessel to make a complete transit under its own steam. Construction was officially completed on 1 April 1914, when the project was handed over from the construction company to the Panama Canal Zone government. The ceremonial opening followed on 15 August 1914, when the SS Ancon (a Panama Railway steamship piloted by Captain John A. Constantine, the canal’s first pilot) made the official first transit [2].
The opening on 15 August 1914 was overshadowed by the European war that had begun earlier that summer. A large celebration had been planned for the canal’s opening, but the outbreak of the First World War forced the cancellation of the main festivities, and the opening became a modest local affair rather than the international spectacle the U.S. administration had intended. The political message of the canal as a U.S.-controlled global artery was therefore delivered not to a celebratory audience but to a wartime one [2].
Cost, controversy, and the legacy of the construction era
The final cost of the U.S. canal project was about $375 million, a figure that included the $40 million paid for the French Compagnie Nouvelle’s assets and the $10 million paid to the Republic of Panama under the 1903 treaty, along with the decade of construction work itself. It was the most expensive construction project in U.S. history up to that time, yet it cost about $23 million less than the 1907 estimate despite the landslides and the widening of the canal during construction [2].
The legacy of the U.S. construction era is mixed. On the engineering side, the project succeeded: the lock canal opened in 1914, operated reliably for decades, and proved vital to American military strategy during World War II, when it allowed ships to transfer easily between the Atlantic and the Pacific. On the labour side, the project relied on a stratified workforce in which the great majority of the roughly 5,600 dead were West Indian labourers. On the political side, U.S. control of the canal became a continuing irritant in U.S.-Panamanian relations, and the Canal Zone remained an American territory until the Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1977 set in motion the transfer that was completed on 31 December 1999. The construction era’s decisions, in other words, were consequential well past the 1914 opening [2].
The Culebra Cut: the central engineering challenge
The Culebra Cut (later renamed the Gaillard Cut) was the central engineering challenge of the canal. The cut ran roughly 8 miles (13 kilometres) across the continental divide, where the Americans lowered the summit to about 12 metres (39 feet) above sea level over a bottom width of about 22 metres (72.5 feet). It was begun by the French in 1882 and continued by the U.S. from 1904 onward. By the time the Americans finished, they had excavated more than 76 million cubic metres (99 million cubic yards) of material from the cut, of which about 23 million cubic metres (30 million cubic yards) was unplanned work forced by landslides. The unstable geology of the cordillera produced continuous slides throughout the construction period; a single slide in January 1913 added roughly 1.5 million cubic metres (2 million cubic yards) of loose earth, which was ultimately removed by dredging once the cut was flooded. Bucyrus steam shovels made a passage through the cut at the level of the canal bottom on 26 May 1913, and dry excavation ended on 10 September 1913. The Cut is named for Major David du Bose Gaillard, the Central Division commander who directed the work; he was promoted to colonel only a month before he died of a brain tumor in Baltimore on 5 December 1913, and never saw the opening of the canal whose central section he had directed. The Cut was renamed the Gaillard Cut in his honour on 27 April 1915 [2].
The Culebra Cut’s role in the U.S. construction story is also the principal example of how the construction effort had to be redone and re-engineered as the geology proved more difficult than the U.S. engineers’ initial surveys had suggested. The U.S. inherited the French excavations as a starting point, but the cut’s slopes had to be repeatedly re-cut as landslides forced the excavation of roughly 30 million cubic yards of material beyond what was originally planned, and the design had to be re-thought several times during the construction period. The lessons of the Culebra Cut (that the isthmus’s geology is more complex than the surveys suggest, and that the cut’s instabilities are not just a construction-phase problem but a perpetual operating challenge) were carried forward into the canal’s later operating practice, including the 2007-2016 expansion programme that built the new Neopanamax locks (covered in The Canal Transfer Era (1990–1999)) [2].
Where to take this next
The canal that opened in 1914 was the legal property of the United States for the next eighty-five years. For the diplomatic effort to renegotiate the canal’s status, see The Torrijos Era. For the 1999 transfer of the canal and the Canal Zone to Panama, see The Canal Transfer Era (1990–1999). For the treaty that authorised the construction, see The Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty. For the engineering effort that preceded the U.S. construction, see The French Canal Attempt (1881–1894). For the transcontinental railroad that handled much of the workforce’s freight during construction, see The Transcontinental Railway (1850–1855).
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