That well-known palindrome is about as short a story as you can get of what is considered to be one of the greatest engineering feats ever accomplished by mankind. small wonder that such a mammoth project was undertaken.  just imagine this: shipping companies could shave almost 8000 yes 8000 nautical miles off their trip from New York to San Francisco! over 10,000 miles off from Frisco to Gibraltar and 5 1/2 thousand miles from Liverpool to San Francisco.

Let’s take a look at geography and history and examine some special people who made this project possible. We go back as far as 1502 1503 to get our start and guess who is parked in ships right at the entrance of the modern-day Panama?

Christopher Columbus – yes the Christopher Columbus – spent Christmas and New Year’s day right at the entrance of the Chagres River. Why didn’t he go up that river and have the added glory of being the discoverer of the Pacific ocean? Were his ships too badly battered by storms? Were he and his men too tired? Whatever the reason The door to history was left open and 10 years later Balboa marched across the Isthmus of Panama and discovered what he called the great South Sea. The Pacific ocean!

Imagine just forty short miles from one major ocean to another and a shortcut that made men drool! France was the first country to rush in where angels fear to tread and it was no surprise that they put their hopes in Ferdinand De Lesseps who had already completed the Suez Canal in 1869. Because the Atlantic and Pacific are at the same level (except for tides) he suggested a sea level canal with no locks. He started in 1881 and felt he would finish it in 12 years. Things went terribly wrong! Mosquitoes put them out of business. Some say 16,000 died of malaria and yellow fever.

By 1889 he was in disgrace and a lot of French machinery was rotting in the jungle.

In 1898 during the Spanish-American war it took three months for an American warship to get from the Pacific to the Atlantic, so in 1902 they bought the project from the French for $40 million! Now, as Teddy Roosevelt said “make the dirt fly.” They started in 1904 and because of impossible conditions, John Wallace, the first engineer quit after one year! Enter John Stevens who lasted until 1907. He is noted for two innovations that made sure the canal would be completed eventually. #1 He rebuilt the old railroad system and procured lots of rolling stock and steam shovels. #2 He convinced everyone that only a canal with locks was possible. A level canal entailed too much digging.

When Stevens resigned in 1907 Roosevelt turned the job over to the Army Corps of Engineers, along with them came Gen. George Washington Goethals who stayed with it until completion. While the engineers removed dirt from the cut, another famous man was busy cleaning up dirt from around their living quarters! Many feel that without Dr. William Crawford Gergas the canal might never have been completed. He had already conquered yellow fever in Cuba and he used his tried and true methods in Panama. These included muslin cloth for mosquito netting, isolation of the infected, installing sanitary sewers, and fumigating buildings. In 1905 he looked down at the body of a yellow fever victim and said this was the last case they would see! He was right and his name belongs with those who moved literal mountains to complete that project! Finally on May 20, 1913 two steam shovels met from opposite ends of the Gaillard cut and the job was basically over. Just think, over $366 million spent and over 240,000,000 yd.³ of earth moved. Even with that amount of overburden removed ships still travel about 90 feet above sea level! They are raised and lowered that 19 feet by 3 locks at either end of the canal. The Pacific end is actually 27 miles east of the Atlantic and due to the way the isthmus twists at this point. A rather startling statistic when you realize that you are traveling from east to west!