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OCTOBER 1, 1979

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From

The Governor

of the

Canal Zone

T.

At left: A ship moves through Gatun

Locks on a nightime transit of the Panama Canal.

On pages 4 and 5: A view of the Pacific side of the Canal Zone as seen from

Sosa Hill.

his year, the Panama Canal

celebrated its 65th anniversary.

Since the SS Ancon made the

first official transit of the

waterway, August 1, 1914, more

than half a million ships have

moved through the Canal

transporting a wide variety of

commodities to all parts of the

world.

The Panama Canal treaties,

which go into effect today, mark

another significant milestone in the history of this important

world utility. They mark the

beginning of a new era bringing

changes that challenge all associated with the waterway.

For Canal employees, the

passing of jurisdiction over the

Canal Zone to the Republic of

Panama and the creation of the

new and smaller Panama Canal

Commission call for major

adjustments in lives and

livelihoods.

The Canal Zone has passed

into history. It has been unique

in American political history and

a showcase of American

organization. All who have

worked and lived here can take

pride in the standard of

excellence set during construction days and maintained

throughout the years.

We must now turn our

attention to the future. Much has

been done in that regard. The

initial changes taking place have

been anticipated and carefully

planned to avoid any major

disruption in the operation of the

Canal. But the best of plans will

fail without the enthusiastic

efforts of those who must carry

them out. In this regard I am

confident that the keen sense of

responsibility and devotion to duty which have prevailed will continue to be reflected in the

efficient operation of this world

utility.

To those who are leaving the

Canal, I wish you Godspeed and

good luck. For those who are

staying on with the Commission,

other U.S. Government agencies, or the Republic of Panama,

the days ahead will demand the

best that you have to offer in terms of continued commitment

to your duties and willingness to adapt to new situations. Judging

from the dedication you have

shown during these last uncertain years, I know that you

are equal to the task.

$[ e 0<J^JS

The Panama Canal Review
Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries

http://www.archive.org/details/panamacanalrevie1979pana

HAROLD R. PARFITT

Governor-President

JAMES H. TORMEY

Lieutenant Governor

^ PANAMA ||g|| CANAL g

WILLIE K. FRIAR

Editor

VICTOR G. CANEL _ „ „

Write

J'

s ... , , ,. ~„. Fannie P. Hernandez, Dolores E. Suisman. Acting Information Officer Official Panama Canal Publication VlCKJ M Boatwright

All articles and illustrations in the Panama Canal Review may be reprinted in full or in part without further permission by crediting the PanamaCanal

Review as the source. The Review is normally published twice a year. Yearly subscription is $3 for regular mail and $6 for airmail. The price for back issues

is $1.50 for regular and $3 when sent by airmail. For subscriptions, send check or money order made payable to the Panama Canal Commission to Panama

Canal Review, Panama Canal Commission Public Information Office, A.P.O. Miami, Fla. 34011. The editorial office is located in Room 100

Administration Building, Balboa Heights, Republic of Panama.

In This Issue

-"THIS EDITION OF THE REVIEW MARKS AN END AND A BEGINNING.

1 It takes a nostalgic look at the past —at the buildings, the symbols, the living

J ~

l*£&| anc> working environment of the Canal Zone—and an optimistic view of the

challenge of change facing the Canal organization.

... ^ * '-m 'n ^Sft&P — Taking the place of both the summer and winter editions, this special edition of ^*&&&%^m { he Review is being published to mark the day of the implementation of the new

8fetSJn,j.-*£fe^di Panama Canal treaties. The October 1 edition will be the last time the Review will appear as an official *^_ ' "^ ' *<i~ S ^^ publication of the Panama Canal Company/Government. With the formation of

..;>;" '""Wv -^-^SSSm tne Panama Canal Commission, it will become an official publication of that U.S.

''v.J&3t*i Government agency, which will be responsible for the operation of the Canal.

With the Summer 1980 edition will come the first major change in the Review's

logo since it began publication May 5, 1950. The retiring of the Canal Zone seal

will leave a hole in our logo but for the next edition there will be a Panama Canal

Commission seal to take its place.

Special thanks go to our guest writers who include Pandora Aleman, formerly an Information Office writer but now with Records Management Branch; Janet

Len-Rios, free lance writer; Robert Burgess, retired Curator of Publications for the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Va., and Veterinarian Nathan B. Gale

who collaborated on the wildlife story with Dolores Suisman, recently retired

editor of the Spillway, the Canal's weekly newspaper. The new Spillway editor,

^k Vicki M. Boatwright, assisted in the layout and design of this edition. a&^Sa'ddi

' I Photographers whose work is included in this edition are: Mel Kennedy, who

^&$Pt& M designed the cover and served as art and photo director, Arthur L. Pollack, Don

Goode, Kevin Jenkins, Alberto Acevedo, Gerry Laatz, and Bob Rogers, all of the

Graphic Branch, and Vic Brown and Fred Robinson, of the Canal Zone Police,

who provided most of the wildlife photos. Artwork is by Carlos Mendez of the

Graphic Branch and Dante Fiori of the Division of Schools.

Contents

Buildings 7-24 Symbols 25-35

The Panama Railroad 36-37

Flora and Fauna 38-49

The Canal Today 50-53

The Canal Yesterday 54-58

Looking Backward 59-63

The Canal Zone at Night 64-67

On The Cover

Lights from the many new highrise buildings of the Panama City skyline are a dramatic backdrop to the classic lines of the Canal's Aaministration Building in this night photograph by Mel Kennedy, who went to the top of Sosa Hill to get this view. Back in 1915, "Red" Hallen chose the same site for a night photograph of brand new building and the Prado. It appears on page 65. A comparison of the

two photos makes clear the dramatic changes that have taken place over the

past 64 years.

6 October 1, 1979
v

Administration

Building Unites Past,

Present and Future

By Vicki M. Boatwrighl

THE POWERFUL SCENES OF

Canal construction that dominate

the walls of the Rotunda of the Balboa

Heights Administration Building hold

employees and visitors alike in their

thrall. For the murals depict in bold

brushstrokes of pale ocher, bright

orange and brick red the monumental

labor that went into building the

Canal. They tell us of what used to be. But the very quiet of the rotunda and

the air-conditioned coolness distance us from the realities of construction

days. They seem far away in time

and space. But face north in the rotunda and

walk forward a few steps. All of a sudden the gap between past and

present is bridged. In the central

staircase, laid down in pink Tennessee

marble in 1914, the steps are grooved

from the treading of thousands of

pairs of feet that have passed this way

since the building was completed. As

you take hold of the mahogany

banister and begin to climb, you

become part of that throng: hurrying

to work on a breezy dry season morning in 1915; carrying blueprints

up to Engineering in 1923; worrying

about war news in 1942; or trudging

back to work in 1957 after a 5<t cup of coffee in the cafeteria. The steps, the

banister, the building, all link us in an unbroken chain with those who

walked this way before.

In 1912, about the same time that the finishing touches were being made

to Gatun Locks and Gatun Lake was

filling up, Chief Engineer George

Goethals, who by this time was also Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, turned his attention to the

construction of a permanent building

that would centralize the administration of the waterway. The engineering

department had moved to Culebra

in 1906, the disbursing and accounts

offices were in Empire, and most of the offices concerned with material

and supplies had been relocated at Cristobal.

Unaware, surely, that he would be

the first Governor to occupy its executive office, Goethals named a

The arched window at the third story

landing of the central staircase is typical

of Italian Renaissance architecture.

The Panama Canal Review
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high-powered committee boasting such

notables as colonels Gorgas, Hodges

and DeVol to find a suitable location on the Pacific side for a building

that would be "well fitted to the pur- pose and character of an edifice which

is to guard and direct the interests and

operation of the Canal, overlooking

. . . what will be the first permanent

town of the Zone."

They considered five locations,

four on or near Sosa Hill and one on a

knoll of Ancon Hill west of the quarry

that gave Quarry Heights its present name. When the committee decided on the latter site, which they described more precisely as "30 feet back of the

former triangulation station on Lone

Tree Hill," Goethals approved the

choice with the stipulation that not a spoonful of earth was to be moved

until a competent architect had gone

over the ground.

Goethals' idea of a "competent

architect" was Austin W. Lord, head

of the department of architecture at Columbia University and a senior

member of the firm of Lord, Hewlett

and Tallant of New York. But theirs was to be a difficult association.

Lord spent the month of July 1912 on the Isthmus studying the topography of the land and local conditions

that would affect the design of the

buildings. The agreement was that he

would return to New York to work out

a general scheme in which all of the

buildings "from Toro Point to Taboga

Island would be of a prevailing

style." He was to visit the Isthmus

every couple of months during the

construction period.

The arrangement never suited

Goethals. The Chairman wanted the

architect to leave his 5th Avenue

offices and come to the Isthmus until the job was completed. Their cor- respondence reflected the basic conflict —the hard-driving Goethals sent

curt memorandums demanding to know what the hold-up was and complaining of delays caused by having to do business by mail; Lord wrote long

letters back, explaining that the Commission hadn't authorized him enough

draftsmen, and more importantly,

Canal officials had made no decisions as to how the offices would be layed

out.The Canal Record was later to comment, "The entire building was

planned without any definite knowledge of what offices were to occupy it,

LumilllllllTlltf

At left, in January 1914 the exterior of the Administration Building neared

completion, but Albrook Field was still a swamp and the Ancon Cemetery

had yet to be moved to what is now Corozal to make way for new houses.

Miraflores Locks is visible in the distance. Above: It's 1916 and a payday at the

building, where employees line up at the pay windows located at the west wing to receive their wages in gold. Down the hill the First Baptist Church

is under construction. Below: Males were still in the majority at the

building in 1929, judging from this scene in the Record Bureau. The group

seemed to be divided right down the middle on the bow tie versus the

four-in-hand. The Record Bureau handled the Canal organization's general files and was situated on the second floor in the space now occupied by

the Personnel Bureau.

how much space they would require or how they would be correlated. . . ."

Goethals had been very firm on one

issue, however. He informed the

architect that the Administration

Building was to cost, when completed,

"$375,000 and not one cent more, as we have no more and are going to ask

for no more." No final costs are recorded in the detailed story on the

building that appeared in The Canal

Record on December 30, 1914, but

memoranda indicate that the final figures far exceeded the estimates. At $25 per square foot, the rotunda's

Van Ingen murals alone would run

nearly $25,000.

Lord's direct involvement with the

Isthmian Canal Commission apparently terminated in 1913, but not

The Panama Canal Review
before he had developed the plans for the Administration Building, the lay- out and design for the Prado-type

quarters and terminals buildings of the town of Balboa, and the plans for the

hydro-electric station at Gatun, as

well as the three locks control houses.

He had decided on the "E" shape

for the building to keep it narrow enough to maximize the efficient use

of natural light and because, had it run end to end in a line, the amount of

floor space required would have made

the building too long. The style he

chose is Italian Renaissance.

With Lord out of the picture, his assistant at Culebra, Mario J. Schiavoni, was given the title of architect. With it came the responsibility of carrying out the plans of his pred- ecessor and all the headaches as- sociated with the undertaking.

Schiavoni had an artist's imagination, a quality not altogether ap- preciated by either Goethals or the

resident engineer in charge of construction, Frank Holmes. With the

latter, Schiavoni became engaged in a feud carried on by memorandum,

centering mainly around the architect's tardiness in getting final drawings

for the building completed. At one

point, apparently fed up by Holmes'

habit of sending a copy of every

The overpowering beauty of the high,

domed ceiling, the dramatic murals and

the marble columns and floor make

the rotunda the main attraction of the Administration Building.

The murals, executed by artist W. B. Van Ingen at the request of

Col. George W. Goethals, depict,

below from left, the digging of Gaillard (Culebra) Cut at Gold Hill; the erection

of a lock gate; the construction of Miraflores Locks; and the construction

of the spillway at Gatun Dam.
memorandum to Goethals, Schiavoni

let fly this memo to Holmes: "I beg to

state that I consider your attitude in making repeated written statements about my work very unco-operative

and uncalled for." Among the suggestions made by

Schiavoni was that a decorative title panel in honor of the Canal builders be

placed above the main entrance to the

Administration Building. It would be

sculpted to show an American construction worker flanked on either

side by a Negro, a Spaniard, a French- man and a "Hindoo," with a steam

shovel at one end of the panel and a dredge at the other. The Chairman turned down the

proposal with one sentence: "... I am

of the opinion that all that will be

necessary will be a plain inscription

with letters, V-shaped inset, reading

'Administration Building, Panama

Canal, 1914'." The architect's recommendation

that the Seal of the Canal Zone be laid

in marble mosaic tile in the center of the rotunda floor met with a similar

fate at the hands of Holmes, who

declared it to be too costly and time

consuming.

But despite personality clashes and

delays for which each blamed the

other, the construction work pro- gressed steadily. Notwithstanding his caution about spending, Goethals

applied the same imagination and fore- sight to the construction of the Administration Building that he had to the

Canal itself. He brought Albert

Pauley, the developer of a new

process for making concrete tile blocks, to the Isthmus to oversee the

erection of a plant to manufacture the

blocks for all the permanent buildings

in Balboa. Artist W. B. Van Ingen of New York, famous for his work in the

Library of Congress and the Philadel- phia Mint, was hired to paint murals

for the rotunda that would preserve in art form something of the monumental labor involved in building the

Canal.

At Schiavoni's request, each week's

progress on the Administration Build- ing was recorded by Commission

photographer Red Hallen, whose

work on the Isthmus using bulky glass

plate negatives was to later become

invaluable in visualizing the history of the construction era. On July 15, 1914, a little more than a year from the day the first steel beam

was erected, the Administration Building had its first occupants. The timekeepers' offices at Culebra, Balboa

and Cristobal were assigned one large room extending from the rotunda to the west end of the building on the first

floor. All the heavy construction work

had been completed at that point, but

the 50 employees who were paid in gold and the complement of clerks and messengers who received their wages in silver moved in amidst the

sawing, hammering, mortaring and

painting that accompanied the laying

of the pine flooring, the red tile in the

corridors, and the mosaic tile in the

rotunda, and the finishing up of the

carpentry work and electrical wiring.

No landscaping would be done until the following December, so outside the building the grounds were a

gigantic mudhole. Temporary wooden

steps led downhill to the Prado level, where by June of 1915, the houses

had been completed and construction on Barnebey Street begun.

As with any construction project, not every detail had gone according to

plan. The Administration Building's

third and final architect, Samuel M.

Hitt, wryly pointed out that fact in a

memorandum concerning payment

due on the eight marble columns in the rotunda. Commenting that the

columns were a first class job of marble work, he added that the

supplier was not to blame for the fact that construction workers had set the

top member of the column bases in upside down. Visitors to the rotunda

today will notice that with the exception of one column, the outer edge of the round marble disc upon which

each of the columns rest is ridged,

indicating that side should be facing

downward against the octagonal

lower base.

Between July and September of 1914, the offices at Culebra, Empire

and the administration building at Ancon were moved into the new building. By June of the following year, the

building housed 424 employees, 49 of them women.

Both the location of offices and the

daily routine of the employees that occupied them were, in most cases,

quite different in 1914 from what they

are today. In regard to the offices,

only a few have remained in their original locations. When Governor

Goethals, his Lieutenant Governor

(formerly called the Engineer of Maintenance) and their secretaries moved

into the second floor north front corner overlooking Balboa and the

Canal, they set a precedent for the

location of those offices that has

continued to today.

The Chief Health Officer and Chief

Quarantine Officer moved out of the

old administration building at Ancon

into the Health Department, on the

second floor, which has since become

the Health Bureau. Its offices have

been enlarged, but like the Balboa

Heights Post Office, the Health

Bureau is where it has always been.
Office hours were from 8 to 12 a.m. and 2 to 5 p.m. the first two years after the building was opened, and most

employees walked to work. Judging

from a circular from Governor Goethals issued to all Administration

Building employees, at least one temptation of office life has not changed at

all. Goethals reproved employees for the practice of leaving work early at noon and in the afternoon "in order to secure an advantage in being served in the lunch room or securing seats on

the motor buses."

While the opportunity to leave during the two-hour lunch break was

obviously available, it would appear

that many employees chose to stay in the building during the heat of the day.

Offices were locked during the noon hour; but with commissary

coupons employees could buy a light

lunch consisting of sandwiches, coffee,

and pie from the basement restaurant

that ran the length of what is now the

Graphic Branch. Pool and billiard tables were set up in the basement for the men. The female contingent at the

building must have complained about

wanting equal consideration, for a

After winding his way up the spiral staircase located off the central stairway, Panama Canal photographer

Kevin Jenkins examines the remains

of a safelight in what was once

the darkroom of the Canal's first Official Photographer.

Below: The building's "E" shape is apparent in this aerial view.

short time later two rooms on the third

floor now occupied by the Office of the General Counsel were set up as reading and sitting rooms for the women.

Employees could find plenty to read

in the library located on the third floor

in what is now the office of the director

of the Engineering and Construction Bureau; but there was no room to sit down. The Canal Record reported

that "The Canal library is so filled with

reading matter as to leave little room

for readers." Not long afterward, it was moved to the first floor area now

occupied by the Press and Information offices. Kathleen McGuigan, retired administrative assistant to the Comptroller of the Panama Canal Company, recalls that when she went to work at the building in 1934, the coffee break, now a mainstay of Administration Building life, was non-existent;

but an employee could buy cigars and

candy from a stand that had been in existence in the small room on the

landing between the first and second

floors since the building opened.

As a matter of fact, very little about

the Administration Building's offices or routine had changed when the

20-year-old daughter of two Roosevelt

medal holders got her first job with

the Canal as a clerk in the Claims

Bureau, which took up the area now

assigned to the Budget Branch.

The Paymaster's Office with its two

large vaults occupied the end of the west wing that now belongs to the

Office of Internal Security. When Miss

McGuigan received her monthly pay

receipt, she walked outside to the

porch to cash it at one of the barred

pay windows still visible today, just as her parents had done since 1914. Only back then, she remembers them

saying, the payroll was delivered by

horse-drawn wagon and their wages

were paid in gold.

As a child, she remembers climbing

the winding stairway to the photographer's studio located in the attic at the center of the building directly

above the main staircase. The photographer Hallen took her

portrait using the north light coming

through the paned skylight window

that since has been covered over with

the red tile of the roof. Many years later the Graphic

Branch was to find several thousand

tiny glass plate negatives of employee

identification photos stored in the

wooden filing cabinets of what must

have been Hallen's office under the

12 October 1, 1979
sloping eaves. To get to it he had to walk around the top of the rotunda

dome, which rises out of the attic floor

like something from the science fiction

film "Close Encounters of the Third

Kind." The Graphic Branch was able

to distribute a few hundred of the

negatives to relatives still living on the

Isthmus.

Today the attic is a storage place for old engineering plans, bound volumes

of Canal studies, civil defense supplies, and the bulky air-conditioning

equipment that cools the building. But

the peeling black paint on the walls of what was once a darkroom is a silent witness to its original use. C. A. Mclvaine, Executive Secretary under Governor Goethals, still held that position when Miss McGuigan came to work for the Company. To employees, she says, he was "like God." Governors came and

went but C. A. Mclvaine endured,

carrying such broad responsibility as

to make him, in effect, the working

governor. His office was located in what is now the Governor's Board

Room. The Correspondence Bureau,

much later to become Administrative

Services, took up the space on both

sides of the hall that now belongs to the Office of the Executive Secretary.

Nearly all of the secretarial work for the Administration Building and a

great deal of the writing was handled

by employees of that bureau.

Office supplies were kept in a

stationary storeroom, Miss McGuigan

recalls, just as they had always been.

Government forms and writing paper,

as well as the ubiquitous paperweight

to anchor them against the dry season

breezes that blew through open

windows, were among the items

requisitioned on a weekly basis. The present Director of the Company's Office of Equal Opportunity

Bruce Quinn, who grew up on

Barnebey Street in Balboa, says his most vivid memory of the Administration Building is when as children he

and his sister stood at the bottom of the stairs each afternoon, starched

and pressed, waiting for their father to

get off work. At closing time, Quinn

recalls, great waves of people poured

out of the building and down the broad

expanse of stairs. Indeed, the stairs played a signifi- cant role in community life at one time.

On Memorial Day in years gone by

wreaths were placed against the

bronze plaque embedded in the base

of the original flagstaff to honor the

Canal's World War I dead. On the

Fourth of July refreshment booths were set up on the concrete terrace around the building, and the stairs were alive with people watching the

marching band on the circle of grass below.

Today, only a few hardy souls come

and go by way of the 113 stairs that architect Lord had so carefully de- signed to emphasize the majestic

sweep from the building to the Prado, an effect now broken by the presence

of the Goethals Memorial.

The years have brought many- changes to the Administration Building. Offices have been moved from one floor to another and in some cases

to other buildings. Windows have

been blocked with concrete, and

others have been created where no windows existed. Billiard tables and

reading rooms are a thing of the past.

Paychecks are cashed at the basement vault that once housed valuable

records. The scars in the concrete

retaining wall at the end of each wing

of the building are all that remain of the hitching rings of the horse and

buggy era. Governor Parfitt will walk down the

stairs one last time and the Office of the Governor will become the Office

of the Administrator. But the grandfather clock there that dates back to the French canal effort will go on

ticking away the passage of time. And

the grooves in the pink Tennessee

marble stairs will keep getting deeper,

reminding us that past and present

are one.

Col. George W. Goethals was the first Governor of the Canal Zone to use this second-floor office overlooking

the town of Balboa, and Maj. Gen. H. R. Parfitt is the last.

The Panama Canal Review 13
THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE, THE

building most intimately linked

with the construction days of the

Panama Canal, will become the official residence of the Administrator of the

Panama Canal Commission, with the

departure of Governor Harold R.

Parfitt, the last Canal Zone Governor.

The historic house, built as a residence for the Chief Engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission, was

located in the construction-day town

of Culebra, overlooking what is now

Gaillard Cut. Its first resident, John F. Stevens, canceled plans for an elab- orate new residence for the chief engineer which was being built in Ancon because he wanted a simple

house close to the work site. The

building originally designed to be the

official residence is now the District Court Building. It is featured in a story on page 24.

Lt. Col. George W. Goethals

moved into the house in 1907 when he

succeeded John F. Stevens as Chief

Engineer. As Goethals was also chairman of the Isthmian Canal

Commission House 159 became the

quarters of the Canal Zone's chief executive.

It was in the house at Culebra that most of the official visitors, coming

to see the Canal construction, were

entertained and many expressed

regret that the commodious house was to be dismantled and that the

town, with its profusion of attractive

tropical shrubbery, would be abandoned following the opening of the

Canal.

The house and several other

buildings were taken down in 1914,

each section carefully numbered, and

moved by flatcars to new locations at Balboa Heights. According to rec- ords, the Governor's House cost $19,773 to build in 1906. It cost almost

that much $16,300, to move it from

Culebra in 1914, and re-erect it at Balboa Heights.

Though a number of changes have

been made during the tenure of each

Governor, the house on the side of Ancon Hill, the official residence of Canal Zone Governors for more than

60 years, remains basically the same

as when it was first constructed.

Col. Chester Harding, Governor

from 1917 to 1921, had a porte

cochere built at the front entrance

over the circular driveway. During the

administration of Col. Meriwether L.

A Link With

The Past

Walker, 1924-28, some general altera- tions were made, the main one being

the doubling of the width of the side veranda. Most of the original equipment and furniture was replaced

during the administration of Col.

Harry Burgess, 1928-32. At this time,

the Governor's House acquired its

first official china and flat silver which

bears the Canal Zone seal. It was in that era also that the Canal Zone seal was woven into table and bed linen. Major changes were made in 1959

and 1960, under the supervision of Governor and Mrs. W. E. Potter, who

in the interest of history and tradition,

rejected plans for a completely new

official residence. Instead, they re- tained the original style of the house,

with its wide-sweeping verandas, high

ceilings and large gracious rooms,

characteristic of Canal construction

days. Walls and foundations were

reinforced, and wooden flooring was

replaced with tile on the first floor. The

stairway was relocated, a modern

service section built in the basement,

and a small bedroom, bath, and library on the first floor were converted into a comfortable air-conditioned guest

suite. Whenever possible, materials,

including the polished tiles on the first floor and the ornamental iron gates in the garden, were obtained in Panama.

The handsome Chippendale dining

table, its 22 matching chairs, buffet,

and two serving tables were made of native mahogany by the Maintenance

Division to replace the set dating back

to Goethals' day.

A fountain was added in the front of the house, a fish pond and fountain

built on the patio, a retaining wall was

constructed to terrace the gardens

and considerable landscaping was

done.

During Governor Walter P. Leber's

term, the house was air-conditioned

throughout. A breakfast porch, in keeping with the architecture of the

house, was added in 1971 during

Governor David S. Parker's term. Items that enhance the historic atmosphere of the house continue to be added. A collection of oils and

watercolors of the Canal and Panama,

painted in 1913 and 1914 by E. J. Read,

that has been acquired by the Canal

Zone Library-Museum, is displayed on

loan in the house, along with oils by

Alwyn Sprague, well-known Canal

Zone artist. When the Tivoli Guest

House closed, some of the fur- nishing, including one of the famous

wicker rocking chairs, were trans- ferred to the Governor's House.

Entertaining at the Governor's

House includes formal dinners and

luncheons for 10 to 60 guests and

informal receptions, dinners, teas and

coffees accommodating up to 200 or 300 guests using the spacious reception areas inside as well as the patio

and garden. Because of sudden

showers during the rainy season, from

May to December, a large awning is placed over the main part of the patio.

The second floor of the house is for family living. It includes a large living room; two large bedrooms with baths; a study; a wing with a small bedroom

and bath; and utility room. Most of the upstairs furniture is provided by

the family occupying the house.

Furniture in the downstairs area belongs to the house but each family

adds a few additional personal pieces

of furniture as well as some decorative

objects.

Through the years, while it stood at Culebra and after it was moved to Balboa Heights, distinguished guests

from many countries including pres- idents of the United States and

Panama have visited this historic house.

Many on the long and impressive list of visitors who have been entertained

at the house by Governor and Mrs.

Parfitt since his appointment March

24, 1975, came to the Isthmus in connection with the negotiation and

ratification of the Panama Canal

treaties. Included on the list, which reads like a "Who's Who" of well-known United

States and international business,

civic, and political leaders, is a large

percentage of the members of the

Senate and House of Representatives.

Having a deep appreciation for the

history of the house, the Parfitts have

made a special effort to invite Canal

employees to come by for a visit and a tour of the public rooms and the

garden. For their Christmas receptions, the invitation was extended to every member of the Canal workforce.

14 October 1, 1979
'• '.'

I

"H,}

The house as viewed from the garden and the veranda remain basically the same as in construction days except for

the screens which were replaced with glass when the house was air-conditioned. Right below: Governor and Mrs. Parfitt take a walk in the garden.

The Panama Canal Review 15
Below left: A painting showing the dredge "Cascadas" at work, in the Canal is displayed just inside the front entrance. Below right: Some of the wicker furniture from the Tivoli Guest

House and mola pillows add local color

to a section of the porch.

Historic Plaque Lists Governors

Engraved on the plaque , at left, which is on a wall in the house, is the following:

"Moved from its original location in Culebra, a now abandoned construction

town on the other side of the Canal, old 'No. 159' has housed Governors of the

Canal Zone since that time. In one way or another, its occupants have left an

imprint on the structure. There have been grounds changes and internal modifications. But the house remains basically the same as built for its first occupant, John F. Stevens, Chief Engineer, Isthmian Canal Commission

in 1906." Also engraved on the plaque are the names of the former occupants, which

includes 16 Canal Zone governors: Gov. Harold R. Parfitt's name will be added

at the end of his term of office. The Goethals family lived in the house, while

it was at Culebra and after it was moved to Balboa Heights for a total of 10 years,

far longer than any other family. There are seven living former governors.

Past governors and their years of service are as follows:

George W. Goethals

(1914-1917)

Chester Harding

(1917-1921)

Jay J. Morrow

(1921-1924)

M. L. Walker

(1924-1928)

Harry Burgess

(1928-1932)

J. L. Schley

(1932-1936)

C. S. Ridley

(1936-1940)

Glen E. Edgerton

(1940-1944)

J. C. Mehaffey

(1944-1948)

F. K. Newcomer

(1948-1952)

John S. Seybold

(1952-1956)

William E. Potter

(1956-1960)

W. A. Carter

(1960-1962)

Robert J. Fleming Jr. (1962-1967)

W. P. Leber

(1967-1971)

David S. Parker

(1971-1975)

Although they never lived in the Governor's House, other Governors of the Canal Zone or officials who were commonly given the

title of "Governor" during the construction period. May 4. 1904 to March 31, 1914, under the Isthmian Canal Commission were: General George W. Davis, Governor of the Canal Zone (Member of original isthmian Canal Commission) May If, 1904 to May 24, 1905; Charles E Magoon, Governor of the Canal Zone (Head of Government and Sanitation) Member of Commission, May 25. 1905 to October 12, 1906, Richard R Rogers, Governor of the Canal Zone (Head of Department of Law & GouernmenfJ November 19, 1906 to March 31, 1907,JosephC S Blackburn, Headof Department of Civil Administration (Member of Commission)

April 1, 1907 to December 4. 1909, Maurice H Thatcher, Head of Department of Civil Administration (Member of Commission) May 13, 1910 to August 8, 1913; Richard L Metcalfe, Head of Department of Civil Administration (Member of Commission)

August 9. 1913 to March 31, 1914.

16 October 1, 1979
The Panama Canal Review 17
By Fannie P. Hernandez

LEAVING THE CIVIL AFFAIRS

Building in Ancon, the 12-year- old boy smiles as he admires the photo on his brand new identification card. For the card, or "ID" as everyone calls

it, is a sign that he is growing up, a Canal Zone rite of passage into the

adult world.

His mother smiles, too, as she walks

to the car with her son. She is remembering other happy occasions that were marked by a visit to this building.

There was the thrill of her first driver's license at 17, her husband's hard

earned ham radio operator's license years later, and the recent purchase of a plate for their new car. Whether old timers or new arrivals,

Canal Zone families sooner or later end up at the low white building off Gaillard Highway that bears a striking

resemblance to an airport.

For the Canal Zone's old timers, the

removal of the control tower and the

addition of a neon sign spelling out "Drive Inn" on one wing and the "Li- cense Section" identified in big block

letters on the other hasn't changed

how they see the building. They still remember the busy activity of a commercial airport, which it was for several years, and the propeller driven

planes taxiing down Albrook Field.

Above: The Civil Affairs Building today. At left: Leaving the License Section,

Herbie Raybourn shares the thrill of

his first ID card with his mother

Jacqueline. His father, Herb Raybourn,

heads the Recreation Services Office located on the second floor of the building.

The first commercial flights to the

Isthmus landed at France Field on the

Atlantic side, where Pan American

Airways had a small wooden structure

that served as its terminal. In 1940,

when PAA established flights three

times a week from Miami to the Canal

Zone, operations were shifted to the

Pacific side because France Field was

inadequate for the new larger four- engine planes.

Civil Affairs

Building Combines

Business, Pleasure

As commercial air traffic increased,

it interfered with emergency wartime

activities at the Albrook Air Field ter- minal, and it was decided that a

terminal for all commercial service

should be built. Following the allocation of $1,800,000

from the Emergency Fund of the President, the terminal was constructed,

along with a hangar, small utility build- ing and other appurtenances. The

building and hangar were designed by

a group of architects and engineers

working under the direction of Lt. Col.

Norman J. Riebe, of what was then

called the Panama Engineer Division. The contract was awarded to Tucker

McClure and Thompson-Markham

Company and work was to be completed in 100 days.

18 October 1, 1979
When it was inaugurated on June 19, 1943, and turned over to the Governor of the Canal Zone for operation,

it was one of the most beautiful,

modern and fully equipped air ter- minals in this part of the world. The

firs plane to use the new terminal was

a Panagra airliner southbound for Lima.

Reinforced concrete stucco on

cement block and glass block was

used in the construction of the two

main floors, topped by a glass observation room and control tower. Its low

flat construction exemplified a modern

design of the early '40's and offered the

least possible hazard to aircraft on

landing and taking off. The exterior was painted olive drab to conform to wartime regulations.

A stained glass medallion was set in a window above the glass doors that opened by means of photo electric

cells, believed to be the first in these

parts. The medallion, designed by

Colonel Riebe, combines a wing and

propeller motif with the flags of the

United States and Panama against a sheaf of flags of all nations of the

Pan American Union.

Heavy wooden benches were centered in the spacious waiting room and

main lobby that extended up through

two floors. A monolith map of the

Western Hemisphere with Panama at the center was inlaid in the terrazzo

floor in front of the information desk.

The map was to be the cause of a formal complaint by a South American ambassador who claimed that a border between his country and that of a neighbor was not correct. To

avoid the possibility of other "border

disputes" the narrow metal bars

marking the borders were removed

and the map was reset in one solid color. A unique feature of the building was

the flat built-up tar and felt roof where

water remained during the rainy season. The water was expected to provide added insulation and because

its temperature was approximately

120 degrees, it was too hot to permit

the breeding of mosquitoes.

Since the greater part of the construction was done after the United

States entered the war, there were

material shortages and priorities.

Where original plans called for steel, it was necessary to substitute wood or

iron. Local materials were used

wherever possible. Stair railings were made of Central American mahogany,

lockers were of wood instead of steel, and refrigerator shelves of mahogany.

Terrazzo replaced marble on the facade.

After the war, as air travel became

more popular and the terminal be- came a busy international link be- tween North and South America,

there was a constant stream of diplomats and other dignitaries, busi- nessmen, tourists and movie personalities. Local teenagers flocked to the terminal when they heard of the

arrival of Clark Gable, Tyrone Power,

Cary Grant, Dolores Del Rio, Edward

G. Robinson, Vincent Price and many

other celebrities. A rather "very important person" to pass this way was an Indian maharaja

who an hour after his plane took off realized that he had left his coat behind in the terminal. The airliner returned for the coat. Another in- cident that caused quite a stir was a shoot-out in the terminal between

a member of the Somoza family of Nicaragua and a political enemy.

When it was announced just a few

years later, that a new international

airport was to open in Panama and the commercial airlines would be moving

their operations there, a number of requests and recommendations for the utilization of the terminal building were sent to the Governor. The

Caribbean Air Command offered to

transfer the Albrook grade school to the Panama Canal if it would relin- quish claim to the air terminal and its

facilities. As early as July 1945, a group

of employees suggested that it be con- verted to a "modern and up-to-date

club for the exclusive use of Canal and

Railroad employees, with a first class restaurant, bar, dance floor, tennis courts and club rooms."

However, the Panama Canal ur- gently needed the space to house

many of its activities that were

scattered in temporary wooden build- ings and to eliminate the congestion in the Administration Building.

When Tocumen Airport was opened

in September 1949, the terminal was

converted into office space for the

Public Affairs Office, as Civil Affairs was then known, The Federal Aviation Administration maintained its

offices there until 1962, when it moved

to its present location.

Above: A view of the newly opened

Canal Zone Air Terminal, painted olive drab to conform with wartime

regulations, shows the hangar and

part of the airstrip. At far right, two canvas topped touring cars,

taxis of the early 1940's wait for passengers.

The Panama Canal Review 19
For the past 30 years, the building

has been the seat of the Civil Affairs Bureau, the bureau of the Canal Zone

Government responsible for public

education, police and fire protection,

postal, customs and licensing services, other government functions, and

home of the Canal Zone LibraryMuseum.

The Library was the first to transfer

to its new location in the left wing of the second floor which included the

Pan American Airways' 4-engine "fat-bellied" Boeing takes on fuel at the Canal Zone Air Terminal before taking off on the Canal Zone to Miami flight.

BWMHBWMBMMBJMMMiWMBBMBHi

Bookshelves are lifted into more comfortable and commodious quarters on the second floor of the former air terminal where the Library

moved in November 1949.

former mezzanine, moving in November 1949 from the first floor of the

Administration Building. The Museum

moved in late 1950 to what had been

the first floor lobby and the area

looking out on the airfield. When the air terminal building was

turned over to the Civil Affairs Bureau, it needed a new name. Among the suggestions were McIlvaine Building or Mcllvaine Hall, in honor of C. A. Mcllvaine, who was

executive secretary of the Panama

Canal from 1914 to 1940; Goethals

Hall "with a bust of him in the concourse"; and Civil Functions Building.

Canal Zone Governor F. K. New- comer said he believed that Library

Building was "adequate and appropriate," and that is what it was called

until May 22, 1950, when it was

officially designated the Civil Affairs Building.

That same year, the administrative

offices of the Division of Schools

moved from the Balboa Elementary

School to occupy the right wing of the

first floor. The License office moved from the

Police Station opposite the Balboa

Elementary School to the area that had been the airmail dispatch section

and bonded storage of Panama

Customs.

The Police and Fire divisions, which

until 1950 were one division, each es- tablished headquarters in the building

in the mid '50's; the Fire Division took

over an area in the left wing of the first floor that for a time had been used by a branch of the Postal Division for the

sale of money orders and postal certificates; and the Police Division lo- cated in the second floor area formerly

occupied by airline offices. The Canal Zone Postal Service and

its Philatelic Agency moved to the

third floor observation room where

employees have enjoyed a privileged

view. From their desks, they could

follow the top of ships transiting the

Canal, passing trains, and aircraft landing and taking off at Albrook.

Since it was created in 1963, the

Recreation Services Office has been

located on the second floor, and when

the Canal Protection Division became

the fifth division of the Civil Affairs Bureau, it took over space in the right

wing of the second floor. When Civil Defense was a part of the Civil Affairs Bureau, it too had an office there. The control tower operation was

20 October 1, 1979
moved to Tocumen Airport when the

terminal closed. The former kitchen

became a Drive-Inn in January 1950

and the coffee shop was later converted to a vending site.

The electric door device was removed in 1952, perhaps because the

doors opened inward into the building

and Canal Zone fire regulations

require that doors in public buildings

open outward, The bar had been

transferred earlier to the Hotel

Washington.

Five directors have served as ad- ministrators of the Civil Affairs Bureau over a period of nearly

30 years. Col. Richardson Selee

(retired) was named the first director

when the first reorganization of the

Panama Canal and Panama Railroad

operating units was made in July 1950. When Selee left the Canal in October

1953, Henry L. Donovan was ap- pointed to succeed him and served

until his retirement in August 1961. Bernhard I. (Emo) Everson was the

third Civil Affairs director and served

until October 1973, when he retired. He was succeeded by Francis A. Castles who retired in February 1977

and Fred A. Cotton was appointed

the fifth and last Civil Affairs director.

With the disappearance of the

Canal Zone Government upon entry

into force of the Panama Canal

Treaty, title of the Civil Affairs Building has been transferred to the

Republic of Panama.

The Treaty, however, provides for the Panama Canal Commission to use

certain office space within the building

during the period of transition for

activities related to the management,

operation or maintenance of the Pan- ama Canal. The Treaty also allows the

Commission to operate and maintain

the public library-museum, enabling

the library to offer full scope library

services from the building.

In accordance with the Agreement,

the Police, Fire and Canal Protection

division headquarters will remain in the building from 12 to 14 months,

until new headquarters are readied for them in the former Balboa Housewares Building. These divisions are sharing the building with Panama

Government offices including Pan- ama's main municipal traffic court and

Panama's licensing and registrations

offices.

The stained glass medallion signifies that the building was once an airport.

Civil Affairs Building "old-timers" listen attentively as Library-Curator

Beverly Williams (1951) tells her longtime coworkers the story

of the oil painting of the Half Way House that hangs on the second floor. From left, Rhoda Fox (License Section, 1950), Peggy Zeimetz

(Director's Office, 1953). Billy Hultin. Director's Office, 1961), Cecilia Vaz (Schools, 1951), and Doris Etchberger (Schools, 1949). "Old-timer" Katherine Melanson (License Section, 1951) was not present

for the picture taking.

The Panama Canal Review 21

By Janet Len-Rios

History of C.Z. Hospitals

A Chronology of Change

22 October 1, 1979

Aerial view of Gorgas Hospital on the Pacific side of the Isthmus and,

at right, Coco Solo Hospital on

the Atlantic side.

THE FIRST CANAL-SUPPORT

hospital on the Isthmus of Pan- ama was L'Hospital Central du Panama built by the French Canal Company in 1882 at Ancon near the present site of the Logistics Building. The latest major hospital construction

in the Canal Zone was the completion

in 1977 of the pylons added to the Main Building of Gorgas Hospital to absorb the destructive forces of earthquakes. The change from French to American administration brought a change

in name to L'Hospital Central du Panama in 1905 when it was, by

gubernatorial decree, renamed Ancon

Hospital. Canal Zone medical facilities have,

since the beginning, been staffed by

outstanding medical personnel who

have become particularly well known

in the field of tropical medicine. The

hospital at Ancon has had its own

laboratory since 1905. With the close of the Canal construction period and the concomitant

decrease in workforce to operational

levels, many of the buildings in the spawling complex at Ancon, by that time rather run-down anyway, were no longer needed; so a smaller, more modern and more centralized facility was planned. The "new" Ancon Hospital was completed in April of 1919.

In March of 1928, by Joint Resolution of Congress, Ancon Hospital was renamed in memory of Maj. Gen.

William Crawford Gorgas, the first Chief Sanitary Officer of the Canal

Zone, for his work in ridding the Isthmus of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the vector of the dread yellow

fever which had taken such a terrible

toll in human suffering and death

during the early Canal construction

days. The advent of World War II brought an urgent need for ex- panded medical services to facilities already taxed by an influx of personnel

to work on the third locks project. Existing facilities were enlarged and

hospitals were also built on the various

military bases. Modernization has continued and the present Main

Building of Gorgas Hospital was

completed in 1965.

In recent years needs have again changed and medical services have been gradually consolidated at the two main hospitals—Gorgas on the

Pacific and Coco Solo on the Atlantic.

Flexibility and change have been bywords for medical services in the Canal Zone. With this history, it should come as no surprise that yet another change is in store. On

October 1, with the implementation

of the treaty, jurisdiction over Canal Zone medical facilities will transfer to the United States Department of Defense.

The Panama Canal Review 23 gi**^L
ALTHOUGH ORIGINALLY

considered the "permanent

Administration Building," this concrete block building at the foot of Ancon hill served that purpose less than a decade, before becoming

headquarters of the U.S. District Court for the Canal Zone. The rambling three-story land- mark with a striking view of Panama

was first intended as the permanent

residence for the Canal Zone

governor. The house, whose completed cost a report of the Isthmian

Canal Commission estimated at around $200,000, was to have had

15 bedrooms, each with its own

bath, a roof garden and a 55 by 48

foot drawing room. Between 12 and

15 servants would have been

necessary to keep it up.

In late 1906, before anything but

its exterior was completed, Chief

Engineer Stevens ordered that it be

converted to an Administration

Building, and by January of 1908

it was ready for l.C.C. officials to move in. The first occupants were

the chiefs of the Civil Administration

Department; the Division of Posts,

Customs and Revenues; and the

Secretary of the Commission.

By September of 1914, when the

transfer to the "new" Administration

Building at Balboa Heights was

completed, only the offices of the

Special Attorney, the legal department and a branch pay office

Court Comes

To Order in

The Ballroom

remained. The following year the

headquarters of the United States troops in the Canal Zone was

temporarily located on the second

floor. Exactly when it was decided to convert the building to its present use is not clear. A memo to the

Governor from the Constructing

Quartermaster dated November 24, 1914, authorizing repairs and

alterations costing $29,000 bears

a handwritten note saying the lower

floor was to be used as a District Court.

In December the Quartermaster

recommended that the former

Sanitary Office on the first floor be used as a courtroom and that the second and third floors be

converted into high class bachelor

quarters to "afford us some relief for the congestion which has existed

for a long time at Ancon." In July

of 1915 he advised that no repairs

be made until it was decided what was to be done with the building.

In any case extensive renovations were carried out and the offices of the U.S. District Court moved in February of 1916. The courtroom was the large room at the front of the building that had originally been

intended as the ballroom of the

Governor's residence. The old

District courthouse in the rear

of the Ancon police station was

turned over to the Christian Science

organization.

Following implementation of the new Panama Canal treaty the U.S. District Court will continue

to hold session in this building

for a 30-month transition period.

24 October 1, 1979
w

r

Canal Zone Seal

Retired But

Replicas Abound

By Pandora Gerard Aleman

MAJ. GEN. GEORGE W. DAVIS,

, first Governor of the Canal

Zone, is said to have remarked in 1905

that the Seal of the Canal Zone would

be a fixture on the Isthmus "for all time." His words have an ironic ring

today, as the Canal Zone is erased

from maps of the world and the seal

itself is eased into retirement.

Representations of the seal have

been a common sight on the Isthmus,

displayed on arm patches of the Canal

Zone Police, on some official cars, on a

pillar outside the rotunda in the

Administration Building, on the Governor's flag, on stationery, forms, and

postage stamps, and even on "license

plates" created by the Panama Canal

Society of Florida to help identify to each other Canal retirees living in the

United States. Hand-painted replicas

have been presented to such dis- tinguished visitors as Congressmen,

the Panama Canal Board of Directors,

the Industrial War College, and

foreign diplomats.

Creation of the seal was, one might

say, a gesture of faith in the Canal

enterprise, for when it was conceived

the Panama Canal was still a mosquito-ridden, rain-drenched dream (or

nightmare!).

The Isthmian Canal Commission

declared in 1904 that "the Executive

Secretary . . . shall be the custodian of the seal of the Government of the

Canal Zone, and shall attest such acts

of the Governor as are required by law

to be done and performed under said

seal." This has been the real job of the

official seal, the embossing device

whose home since 1906 has been the

Executive Secretary's office: to authenticate official and legal documents, particularly those to be used in jurisdictions other than the Canal

Zone. Together with the signature of

the Executive Secretary, the im- pression of the seal has attested the

authenticity and validity of official acts. Through the years, the Executive

Secretary and his staff have had plenty

of opportunity to flex their muscles in the exercise of this official function.

The seal and signature have been

affixed to as many as 5,000 documents

a year, from parole and pardon

documents to notary public commissions.

Having once decided to create a

seal, the Commission cast about for an appropriate design. The origins of the seal are somewhat cloudy, but it appears that both Governor Davis

and Gaillard Hunt, a former State Department official, had a hand in the

design, and that some characteristics were inherited from the French canal

builders.

In 1905, Governor Davis wrote: "The motif of my design was, first, to comply with the law —second, to give

it an essential interoceanic canal

character, for the United States has

but one errand at Panama—to make a

canal, to join the seas for the benefit of mankind—and I, therefore, adopted a motto expressive of that idea." "Of course," he continued, "it is well known that M. DeLesseps adopted a motto for his [French Canal] Company, the idea of which was that the

continents were divided for the benefit

of mankind."

In 1905, "Messrs. Tiffany and

Company," of New York City, sub- mitted several designs for the seal to the Department of State and the

Isthmian Canal Commission. On Mr.

Hunt's recommendation, one was

adopted the following year after the

Commission chairman changed the

original word "earth" to "land"and

made the sails of the Spanish galleon

smaller.

Tiffany's then made the outsized

device for embossing the seal on

official documents which has been

hard at work for the past 63 years. But the Tiffany color design for the

seal, which is still on hand in the

Administration Building, is in many

ways markedly different from the one

so familiar to us. It consists only of a

shield with a ribbon below; there is no

border. The Spanish galleon shown

passing through the Canal in the lower

part of the shield is brown and flies an

orange-and-white flag. The banks of the Canal are brown, with green grass, and the water is blue, showing a

yellow-gold reflection from the slightly

Replicas appear on Traci Cotton's

track medal, plate and bronze plaque

by Artist Alwyn Sprague; and on

retail store items displayed by Viola Dixon, left, and Beverly Kinsey.

The Panama Canal Review 25
orange sky. Below is a light-blue

ribbon bearing the motto "The Land

Divided; The World United" in metallic-gold letters. So the seal might have remained, if President Woodrow Wilson had not in 1915 issued an executive order

establishing that the Governor of the

Panama Canal should have a distinctive flag, bearing the seal, for use in his

official capacity. His executive order

gives the first officially published

description of the seal: "The seal consists of a shield,

showing in base a Spanish galleon of the Fifteenth Century under full sail coming on between two high banks, all purpure, the sky yellow with the glow

of sunset; in the chief are the colors of the arms of the United States. Under

the shield is the motto: 'The land

divided; the world united!'

"

There are obvious discrepancies

between President Wilson's description and Tiffany's execution of the

design. Hence, as the official Historical Description of the Seal of the

Dorothy Cogwell uses the Tiffany

embossing device to affix the seal

to an official document.

Canal Zone says, "for years, color

reproductions of the seal proved

troublesome with mistakes being

made in the arrangement of the white

and red colors in the bars of the chief and in various shadings."

To make matters worse, as the

official description was reprinted over

the years an error crept in (it was

immortalized on the brass plaque

below the sea! outside the rotunda).

Whereas President Wilson speaks of "two high banks, all purpure" {purpure being a heraldic term for purple),

the version with the typographic error

reads, "two high banks, all purpose."

(Imagine the quandary of an artist confronted with the task of depicting

"all purpose" banks!)

Finally, in 1956, it was decided to

settle definitively the question of the proper color scheme. Employees of the Architectural Branch of the

Engineering Division painted designs

based on President Wilson's description. Of these, Acting Gov. Herman

W. Schull Jr., selected illustrator Franklin Kwai Ben's rendition as the

most faithful execution of the official description.

Searching for a bold, striking design

worthy of the seal, Kwai Ben had done

20 different color schemes. But one

remained his favorite throughout. It was a simplified scheme, with the

ship's hull, the water, and the Canal

banks all purple. He gave the seal a blue circular border bearing the words

"Seal of the Canal Zone Isthmus of Panama" in golden-yellow letters. His

favorite turned out to be Acting

Governor Schull's as well. Even though Kwai Ben's color

scheme was adopted 23 years ago, and even though he for a time faithfully

reproduced those colors when painting replicas for VIP gifts, still not every

seal you see will conform to the official color scheme.

A limited number of epoxy repro- ductions of the seal were made from a press designed by the Army Map

Service in Washington, D.C., and

hand-painted on the Isthmus in 1969

for use as VIP gifts. It was one of these

that found a place outside the

rotunda. Since that time, other blanks

have been painted by whoever could

be found with the time, energy, and

skill to do it. Although most have guided themselves by Kwai Ben's design, the

careful eye will detect that each artist's inventiveness and, perhaps, the colors

he happened to have on hand

influenced his rendition. One will see blue banks and blue water with white waves; sunsets

ranging from dull orange-and-yellow

to bright red; and flags of various

colors unfurled atop the galleon's

mast —in short, the range of variation that distinguishes the hand-painted

artifact from the mass-produced.

If you're lucky enough to come into the possession of one of these

reproductions, treasure it for the

"original" it is. From the time the seal was adopted,

there have been hundreds of letters from collectors of official seals, asking

for an impression, and from those who

want to reproduce the seal —in books, on souvenirs, on handkerchiefs and

shirts, in needlework. With the

ratification of the Panama Canal

Treaty of 1977, collectors intensified

their efforts to corner the market on

Canal Zone memorabilia —with special emphasis on any item, from molas

to stamps, bearing a representation of the seal. Such activity accompanies the

passing of an era. The Seal of the

Canal Zone is obsolete. One cannot

but hope, though, that elements of the

seal may be reborn in some new

device to be adopted by the Panama

Canal Commission, just as the dream

symbolized by the seal lives on in the

reality of an interoceanic Canal that parts the Americas and unites the

world.

The 29- Year-Old Panama Canal Co.

Seal Becomes A Part of History

The Seal of the Panama Canal Company was created following the

reorganization of the Panama Canal and the Panama Railroad Company

operating units in July 1950. Designed by the Engineering Division, the Seal

depicts a lower locks chamber of the Canal with the bow of a ship of the

Panama Line in the upper chamber behind a closed gate. Inscribed on the

Seal is "The Panama Canal Company 1950." This Seal along with that

of the Canal Zone Government becomes part of Panama Canal history

following the establishment of the new U.S. Government Agency, the

Panama Canal Commission, which will operate the waterway following

implementation of the treaty.

26 October 1, 1979
New Panama Canal Medal

A Symbol of Change

The passing of an era is commemorated in the bronze medal that has been

issued to all permanent employees of the Panama Canal Company and Canal

Zone Government who were on the rolls as of September 30, 1979, and have at least one year of service. The medal is IV4 inches in diameter to approximate

the size of the Roosevelt Medal and is suspended from a bar bearing the

aforementioned date. It features the seal of the Panama Canal Company on the

front and the seal of the Canal Zone Government on the reverse side. The medals

are serialized beginning with 00001. They have been distributed to employees

with an accompanying certificate bearing the same serial number. The Panama

Canal Company and Canal Zone Government Commemorative Medal was

struck by the Medallic Art Company of Danbury, Connecticut.

The scenes of Canal Zone life that appear on the certificates of appreciation are engraved by Dante A. Fiori, an audiovisual specialist for the Division of Schools.

The Panama Canal Review 27
Medals

Chronicle

History of

Waterway

HUMAN ACCOMPLISHMENTS,

whether they be athletic en- deavors such as the Olympic Games

of the Greeks or engineering feats such as the building of a waterway to

join the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, have always been recognized or com- memorated by a symbol. In the era of the Greeks and the Romans, the laurel wreath was used to distinguish in- dividuals of achievement. In our day,

the medal serves this purpose.

On at least five other occasions

in the 74 years that have elapsed since

the United States undertook to succeed where the French had failed, medals have been struck that had the

Panama Canal as their motif.

The Roosevelt Medal, IV2 inches in diameter, was issued beginning in 1909 to civilian U.S. citizens who had

completed at least two years of satis- factory service with the Canal construction forces or the Panama Rail- road Company on the Isthmus

between May 4, 1904 and December 31, 1914. Made of bronze and copper "French

junk," scrap metal from the equipment that had been abandoned by the

French, the medal features a bust of President Roosevelt on one side and

a bird's eye view of steamers passing

through Culebra Cut on the other. The Panama Canal Completion

Medal commemorating the opening

of the waterway on August 15, 1914,

is struck in bronze and has a very unusual design. On one side the medal

depicts a ship passing through the Canal with Columbia, the female personification of the United States,

standing at the bow. Her arms are outstretched with each hand resting on globes of the eastern and western

hemispheres and a ribbon stretching across her body is inscribed in Latin

"Columbia Unites the Oceans."

On the reverse is the seal of the

Canal Zone and a statement certifying that the medal was carried on

the vessel making the first transit of the Panama Canal.

In 1962, the opening of the $20

million Thatcher Ferry Bridge which

spans the Pacific entrance to the Canal was commemorated with a medal. The 2

1 /2 inch bronze and silver medals feature the bridge on the front,

and the reverse is blank. The

aluminum medals are an inch smaller

and show a map of the Isthmus on the

reverse. To celebrate the Canal's Golden

Anniversary in 1964, a medal was

struck in silver and bronze. On the

front the medal incorporates the four points of the compass and a shield, inside of which a ship sails through

Gaillard Cut. On the reverse is the

seal of the Canal Zone. The National Commemorative Society struck a silver coin-medal in 1971

to commemorate once again the opening of the Panama Canal and to honor Chief Engineer George W.

Goethals. On one side is a bust of Goethals and on the other side is a ship in the Cut. The medals of the Panama Canal

chronicle the highlights of human ac- complishment on the Isthmus and

preserve them for posterity in the beauty of metal. But the Canal itself

in all its concrete splendor is the living,

functioning monument to those first visionaries who dared to dream of a waterway to connect the oceans; to the thousands more whose sweat and

blood brought the dream to completion; and to the men and women today

whose labor keeps it operating at peak

efficiency 65 years later.

28 October 1, 1979
VISITORS DRIVING THROUGH

Balboa for the first time are

apt to slow down for a second look

when they first spot the Statue of Liberty on Gorgona Road. Most are surprised to find a replica of this well known U.S. symbol so

far south.

The Canal Zone statue, which

faces the Balboa Fire Station, was

donated to the Canal Zone

Boy Scout Council in May 1951

by Morris Hoffman, a Kansas City,

Mo. contractor and scouting

enthusiast.

The original Statue of Liberty was

formally presented on May 21, 1884

to the American ambassador in Paris by Ferdinand de Lesseps,

head of the Franco-American

Union, at that time at work on the

ill-fated French effort to build a Canal in Panama.

The idea of a replica of the statue

originated with Jack Whitaker, a Kansas City businessman and

Scouter of long standing, during the

1951 "Strengthen the Arm of Freedom" crusade of the Boy

Scouts of America.

A number of the 7

l /2 foot high

copper and bronze statues were made in a Chicago factory and

presented to Boy Scout councils

in 39 states. They are found gracing

the grounds of eight state capitols,

the lawns of 145 Court Houses,

and 206 of the statues are located

in Scout camps, school grounds

and public buildings. In addition to the Canal Zone, the replicas also are found in the Philippines, Guam,

Honolulu and Puerto Rico.

Although the Governor had

approved the installation site in the

triangle of land bound by La Boca

Road, Balboa Road and the parking

lot in front of the Balboa Police

Station, there were no funds for the

work and the statue was placed on display at the Canal Zone

Library. When funds, mainly

donations from the Boy Scout community, were available, the statue was installed at the selected site and dedicated on May 30, 1953.

The widening of Balboa Road

made it necessary to move the statue

to another area. It was relocated in May 1972 to its present site where

it is often photographed by tourists.

Celebrated Symbol

A Surprise to Sightseers

The Panama Canal Review 29
For A Quarter of A Century

A Balboa Landmark

Symbolic in concept, the monument rising from a reflecting pool 65 feet

in diameter, represents the Continental Divide. The basins on each side

represent the Panama Canal locks with water pouring from them to join

the waters of Gatun Lake with the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The shaft

of marble is 56 feet high, 20 feet wide and 5 feet thick. It was designed

by Shaw, Metz and Dolio, an architectural firm of Chicago with the firm

of Mendez and Sander of Panama as associate architects and was

built by Constructora Martinz of Panama at a cost of $152,299.

THE GOETHALS MONUMENT

which stands at the foot of the

113 steps which lead up to the front of the Administration Building was 25 years old this year. After a quarter of a century as a Balboa landmark, it is such an accepted part of the land- scape that even old-timers have

trouble remembering when it was not

there.

Yet, there was much controversy

about the design and site for the

monument and it took more than 25

years of discussion, delays, indecision,

and planning before the memorial to the "hero of the Panama Canal" was

erected in the Canal Zone. It was

finally dedicated March 31, 1954.

Efforts to build a monument to per- petuate the memory of General

Goethals went on for years and formal

plans were presented in May 1928 at the annual meetings of the various

Panama Canal societies in the United

States. The many years that elapsed

between the planning and fulfillment of the project were not due to lack of enthusiasm. World circumstances,

the depression of the early 1930s and

World War II were the main delaying

factors. Through the years, various pro- posals for a suitable site and for the

memorial itself and other recognitions

of Goethals were presented. Resolutions were introduced in the House of Representatives to change the name

of Gatun Lake, Dam, Spillway and

Locks to Goethals Lake, Dam,

Spillway and Locks. Another suggestion was to change the name of the town of Gamboa to Goethals.

A Goethals memorial library was sug- gested as were memorial museums,

buildings and statues including a

statue for the rotunda in the Administration Builan'.g. All of these ideas were discarded as unsuitable.

On August 25, 1935, Congress

appropriated $160,000 to build a memorial and President Franklin D. Roosevelt named General John J.

30 October 1, 1979
Pershing to head the Goethals Memorial Commission.

One suggestion given considerable

attention at that time was a memorial

at the Cristobal mole at the Atlantic entrance of the Canal. Another was a

shaft or obelisk at one or both en- trances to the Canal. President

Roosevelt favored the proposal of a

shaft with a beacon light to be placed

atop one of the two hills in the Canal

Zone. The Cristobal site continued to be

reviewed and discussed until World

War II when the construction of the

memorial was postponed for the

duration.

Still, efforts to give recognition to Goethals continued and in early 1943, a group of Canal employees who had

served with him suggested a bronze

bust to be placed in the Governor's

office. A letter was written to Tiffany

and Company of New York asking if a bust about 12 inches high could be

produced for $1,000 or less. Tiffany

replied that it lacked the capability and

called attention to a government

regulation prohibiting the use of bronze as the metal was needed for the war effort. At about the same time, there was

another movement to erect a 2' by 3' bronze memorial tablet "somewhere

in the Canal Zone." It was to be made

of "historic bronze," melted down old machine tools, that were used in the

construction of the Canal. About 300

pounds were required for the pro- posed tablet that was to weigh about

150 pounds and was to be cast by

Gorham of New York.

In 1945, the ultimate tribute was

suggested but Governor J. C. Mehaffey was strongly opposed to changing

the name of the Panama Canal to Goethals Canal.

After the war, the Goethals Memorial Commission was reactivated and

interest was revived in the Cristobal

site proposal which had been ap- proved by Presidents Roosevelt and

Truman. Balboa, Miraflores, Gatun

and the Fortified Islands were added

to the list of possible sites for the

memorial, but by this time costs had

risen markedly and efforts to have

funds increased by Congress were not

successful. At a meeting of the Commission in Washington on February 4, 1952,

Chairman Ralph Budd presented a

tentative design prepared by Alfred

At right: Workmen install steel reinforcement for

the base of the memorial. Below right: Monument begins to take shape. Below:

More than 2,000 persons gather for the dedication, many of them

enjoying the comfort

of the Tivoli Guest

House wicker chairs.

Shaw of a Chicago architectural firm

for a shaft of reinforced concrete with an outside shell of precast concrete which would be simpler and less costly

than the proposed Cristobal design

and could be built with available funds. After further discussions, the Commission authorized the chairman to proceed with the Shaw design for a monument in the circle in front of the

Balboa Elementary School. The Commission approved it on April 4, 1952

and when President Truman was

presented the proposal a few days

later, he approved it wholeheartedly.

Because of the possible hazard to low flying planes, the memorial site was moved to the foot of the Administration Building steps facing the

Prado.

The Panama Canal Review 31
Work progressed on schedule and was expected to be completed on

August 1, 1953 with August 15, the

Canal's 40th anniversary, tentatively

set as the date to hold the dedication

ceremony. The date was postponed

however, until the dry season, and

Governor J. S. Seybold appointed

a Goethals Memorial Dedication

Program Committee.

A rendition of "Stars and Stripes

Forever" by the joint Balboa-Cristobal

high school band opened the formal

dedication ceremony. A half-hour concert by the band preceded the

official ceremony as more than 2,000

revered the memory of General

Goethals.

Following the invocation by Rev. Alexander Shaw of the Balboa Union

Church and Governor Seybold's in- troductory remarks and the reading

of the message sent by President

Eisenhower, who had designated that day a holiday for Canal employees, the honorable Maurice Thatcher, pre- sented $25 U.S. Savings bonds to the

winners of the Canal Zone schools

essay contest on Goethals' contributions to the Panama Canal. Ms. Emily

Butcher directed the La Boca Alumni

Glee Club in a rendition of "American

^r

-

Balboa Elementary School students gaze in wonder at the "snow."

A 1956 Halloween prank, it was produced by adding detergent to the

water flowing into the basins.

Ode." The Honorable Richard E. Whitehead, author of the book "Our

Faith Moved Mountains," a member

of the Goethals Memorial Commission, made the formal presentation

of the Memorial Monument as Dr. Thomas R. Goethals stepped forward

and unveiled the memorial to his famous father.

In addition to the formal dedication, an elaborate program of events was

prepared for the old-timers, some in their late 70's and early 80's, who came

from all parts of the United States to honor their hero. Although not a part of the official dedication program, Mary Pickford

and her husband Buddy Rogers, who

were visiting the Isthmus, greeted the

persons gathered for the dedication of the monument honoring the man

whose remarkable leadership, administrative ability and devotion to the

task contributed to the successful

completion of the waterway.

Among the official guests were old- timers who forty years earlier had

worked on the Canal during the

Goethals era; members of the Goethals

Memorial Commission; members of the legislative committee having juris- diction over Canal affairs; former

Canal Zone governors; Goethals'

son; Maurice Thatcher, the only sur- viving member of the Isthmian Canal

Commission; the President of Panama

and other distinguished guests; Canal

employees, and many others who

old-timers at the Goethals Exhibit at the Little Gallery in the Civil Affairs Building. There were many activities including teenage baseball games in which grandsons of the old-timers

participated.

At the dedication, Governor Seybold said, "The Canal itself is a great

and lasting memorial to him and to the

skill and perseverance of a great army

of men who shared in its construction,

this marble shaft is a visible mark of the respect and honor we pay to him

and to his associates in the achievement of a task of herculean proportions and of immeasurable benefit to humanity . . ."

In the formal presentation of the

memorial, Dr. Whitehead spoke of events that led to the construction of the Panama Canal and after lauding

Goethals' life and work in Panama

as a model of inspirational leadership, he said, "The Congress of the

United States authorized the erection

of this Memorial to General George

W. Goethals in commemoration of his signally distinguished services in connection with the construction and

operation of the Canal. By authority

vested in me by the Goethals Memorial Committee, under whose

direction the wishes of Congress have

been complied with, I hereby dedicate

this Memorial to all nations and to

all people."

In his message read by Governor

Seybold, President Eisenhower said,

in part, "it is indeed fortunate that a man of the stature of General Goethals was available to lead our construction

force in this great undertaking and to

set the pattern for its successful operation. It is only fitting that we should

attempt to perpetuate his memory by

erecting a memorial near the site of the humanitarian enterprise to which

he was so selflessly dedicated."

In addition to commemorating the

outstanding contributions of General

Goethals to the commerce of the

world, the ceremony highlighted the

50th anniversary of the taking over of the construction of the Canal by the United States from the French canal

company. The year 1954 also marked

the 40th anniversary of the appointment of Goethals as the first Governor of the Canal Zone and 47th

anniversary of his appointment as chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission.

32 October 1, 1979
C.Z. Stamp Book

A Collector's Item

THE BOOK, "CANAL ZONE

Postage Stamps," which has

been out of print, is on sale again.

The Canal Zone Postal Service has

reprinted the book to meet the

demand which has developed with

the increasing interest in Canal

Zone stamps.

V-.\\ ..'•"'11

£et:\

s

The Panama Canal Review

Always popular with collectors,

Canal Zone stamps have attracted

special attention lately following the

announcement that the Canal Zone

Postal Service is to be dissolved on

implementation of the treaty which

gives Panama jurisdiction in the

Canal Zone. However, it is not just the stamp

collectors who are buying the book.

Customers include those who are

collecting all types of Canal Zone

memorabilia and others who find it a handy reference book on the

construction of the Canal and the

development of the Canal Zone.

Reflecting on the book's historic value, Gov. William E. Potter, who

served from 1956 to 1960, wrote in the foreword: "The postal history

and stamps of the Canal Zone

Government vividly reflect the earlytrials, heartbreaking failures and

glorious completion of the Panama

Canal. These bits of postage depict

the ingenious planners, scenes of

their work and the determined

'canal diggers' accomplishments."

"This book is an account of the

birth and growth of the Canal Zone

Government's postal system and its stamps. I trust it will help us to know and build upon our great

heritage."

The 452-page paperback volume,

which was prepared by the late Judge Edward I. P. Tateman,

Magistrate of the Cristobal Court, was issued in 1961. The reprint of the book and a supplement, which

covers the period up to the present, are now available through the

General Services Division.

At left: The book, "Canal Zone Postage

Stamps, "

is displayed along with three

of the early stamps honoring Canal

Zone construction day figures. President Theodore Roosevelt, William C. Gorgas

and George W. Goethals; and the last stamp to be issued by the Canal Zone

Government, the new 15-cent stamp,

which was made from a painting by

Alwyn Sprague, well-known local artist.

In the centerfold: An assortment of items imprinted with the Canal Zone

and Panama Canal Company seals and

other items that were issued by the Company Government, all of which will be discontinued on October 1, are

displayed on the door of a Company

official car

23



THE PANAMA RAILROAD IS one of a kind. For more than

70 years, it has been the only year- round passenger and freight operation

of its kind run by the United States Government. The Isthmus' most

effective means of mass transit, the

railroad has carried a good share of the freight moving between Colon and Panama—about evenly divided among

the Canal organization, U.S. military

installations in the Canal Zone, and Panama—and has also handled most

of the container cargo between the two ports. In fiscal year 1978, it trans- ported 66, 136 passengers and 184, 162

tons of freight.

Long accustomed to adapting to the

vicissitudes of life, the Panama Rail- road is now weathering yet another

change. Under the terms of the new

Panama Canal Treaty, the railroad passes, along with its supporting

operations, to the Government of Panama. The Panama Railroad has seen a lot of history. In fact, it has been one of the chief actors in the drama of the Isthmus of Panama.

It gave birth to a city. In 1847, William Henry Aspinwall, a New York

merchant, raised eyebrows by setting out to build a railroad across the Isthmus and combine sea and land routes into one great system that

would open up the whole Pacific. The

railroaders chose Manzanillo Island —a square mile of virgin mangrove swamp —as the Atlantic terminus, and

transformed it into what was to become the city of Colon.

It killed thousands of men. The construction workforce was drawn from

the four corners of the earth

England, France. Ireland, Germany,

Austria, China, India, Jamaica, Colombia. Of the perhaps 12,000 of these who died of malaria, yellow fever, or other hardships of wilderness life and

work, 6,000 found their final resting place at the railroad cemetery at Mount Hope.

It played its part in the California

36 October 1, 1979

Gold Rush. In 1851, after 20 months of labor, the rails reached only 8 miles

into the jungle, to Gatun. In October

of that year, two steamers were beset by a hurricane that drove them from

the mouth of the Chagres (the usual

place of debarkation) to shelter in Navy Bay. From their anchorage,

the gold-rabid passengers spied the work train, and there was no keeping

then back. Since that day, the

Atlantic port of Panama has been

Colon.

It conquered the mighty Chagres

River. The river— 300 feet wide and sometimes rising 40 feet overnightswept away the first bridge at Barbacoas. But by late 1853 it had been

spanned by a 625-foot, six-span bridge

of boiler iron. And on went the rail- road, until in 1855 it went from coast

to coast, 47.51 miles over bottomless swamps and through near impenetrable jungle, till it neared Ancon Hill and the sparkling cathedral towers of the city of Panama.

It made the Canal possible. In 1881

the Panama Railroad was bought by

the French canal company, and when

that enterprise failed the railroad faded away to "two streaks of rust and

a right of way." The U.S. Government

acquired it in 1904, and under the

Canal's chief engineer John F. Stevens

the railroad sprang to life again.

Rebuilt to handle an endless stream

Nostalgia

Rides the

Rails as

An Era

Draws to

A Close

of dirt trains and vastly increased commercial traffic, it offered its passengers

an unparalleled view of one of the wonders of the modern world in the making. By 1912, the railroad line had

been relocated on higher ground and

the original line was abandoned to make way for the waters of the Canal

it had helped create. Fittingly, the

inaugural transit on August 15, 1914, as made by the Panama Railroad steamship Ancon.

Since that day, as before it, the Panama Railroad has carried on its proud tradition of service to the Canal, to Panama, and to the world. An era draws to a close, now, but

the Panama Railroad goes on.

The Panama Canal Review 37
Canal Zone

Forests . . .

By Dr. Nathan B. Gale and

Dolores E. Suisman

FEW URBAN DWELLERS SHARE

as much of their living space with

jungle animals as do those who live in the Canal Zone. It is because we see

these wild creatures so frequently

that we take them so for granted.

When ecologists speak of endangered

species, we think —if we think at all

that they are talking about exotic

creatures that inhabit forbidding jungles we dare not enter. The key to understanding is to remember the animals we are in- timately familiar with, the creatures of the wild that come so timidly into man's territory: deer that emerge at the forest edge at dusk to search for food, then flee back into jungle hiding

places at the approach of a car; a

family of neques we pause to watch

but too late, the mother has been

warned. She bristles, looks right and

left, and with her offspring, scampers

back into the forest; the armadillo we

come upon on an evening walk; an

iguana lazing in the sun on our doorstep; the hummingbird flitting from

flower to flower outside our office window; birds of many colors and

kinds we toss bread to. These animals and birds we know

and enjoy are some of the very ones

ecologists are worrying about when

they warn of the need for conservation

and preservation of Canal Zone forest areas. For the Zone is a biological island of vegetation, animals, birds

and insects that inhabit its un- disturbed jungles and streams. In its lush rain forests, millions of creatures

live and everything that lives in the

jungle dies, decays and becomes food

for new life.

It all began about 5.7 million years

ago, when a series of geographical

groans and tortuous twistings of the

newly emerged ocean floor created a

land bridge, the Isthmus of Panama.

This fortuitous geological event

created the narrow strip of land that one day would attract explorers on

their way to the Orient, plunderers of Incan treasures, travelers to Califor- nia gold fields, engineers building a

railroad and a canal —and wildlife in abundance. The land bridge heaved

up from the ocean floor came to be at least as important to the birds,

mammals, and reptiles of the Americas as it has been to the commerce

of man. Land dwelling animals used this bridge to move into better grazing and

browsing areas, and to search for more abundant or easier-to-catch

prey. Many found the route from temperate to tropical climate to their

liking, settled here, and developed

diverse species.

Some of these —bats, marsupials

and sloths —are still here. Some are already gone forever, like the giant

ground sloth which competed successfully with the environment until about a thousand years ago when it became extinct. With the Canal came the Canal

Zone that today is the last safe haven

for many endangered and threatened

species.

Because of restrictions on public access to the Panama Canal water- shed and defense areas, much of the Canal Zone is an "island of forest" in the midst of a generally cleared countryside. This has helped preserve an

astonishing variety of plants and

animals in what is probably the most

extensive readily accessible forest area in Middle America.

The continued existence of these

forests is ecologically important. They

must be left unscathed if the birds

and animals that inhabit or seasonally

visit them are to survive. Many forest- dwelling animals have special food

requirements and are dependent

upon unique habitats. It may be difficult —or impossible —for them to

relocate. Many birds also are limited

in their choice of habitat or migration route by their poor long-range flying

ability.

It is rare in Latin America to find areas set aside for biological reserves

or national parks. But the ecological

significance of the Zone's forests was

recognized within a decade of the

38 October 1, 1979
Canal's opening; in 1923, Barro Colorado was set aside as a biological re- servation. Measuring about six square

miles in area, the island is the largest

in Gatun Lake.

In 1930, the Canal Zone Forest and

Wildlife Preserve (Madden Forest) was established, and hunting, injuring or molesting wild life; and cutting

down, destroying or damaging timber

or plants was prohibited in its 3,500

acres. More recently, hunting was prohibited on the land along the Pipeline

Road beyond Gamboa.

The importance of Barro Colorado

Island, the immediate area of the west

bank of the Canal, and the Pipeline

Road area is illustrated by the number

of species protected by law that live there. Sixty-three percent of the

animal species protected by Pan- amanian game laws have been seen

there. The U.S. Endangered Species

Act lists 157 species of mammals en- dangered throughout the world. Forty

(26 percent) live in North and South

America, and of these, eight are found on Barro Colorado Island and in the

Pipeline Road area. Thus five percent

of all endangered mammals in the

The Isthmus of Panama offers food

and shelter to both North and South

American bird migrants. The concentrating effect of the narrow to- pography on migratory routes offers a greater variety of avian life, when

added to the native birds, than any

other area of comparable size in the

world.

Five hundred sixty-two species of birds have been recorded from Canal

Zone waters, shorelines, and forested

areas. This is only 80 less than are found in all of North America north of Mexico. The highest one-day bird census recorded in the world was

reported last year from the Atlantic

side of the Canal Zone when 354

species were counted.

The continued undisturbed exis- tence of these areas could be justified

solely on the basis of their research

value. A Smithsonian Tropical Re- search Institute publication lists 2,071

books and papers (through 1976)

written in the most part by scientists working on Barro Colorado Island, in the Canal Zone or in the Republic of Panama. The significance of data pro- vided by this enormous volume of

literature is extraordinary.

*fc°*

%

OThe

most re- cent Smithsonian Tropical

Research Institute publication, a nearly ^^

1,000-page volume entitled Flora of Barro Colorado Island by Thomas Croat,

has been 10 years in the making

The author indicates that over 1,300

species of "vascular plants," which

have a specialized conducting system,

are known from the island. A recent

collection of 200 plants from the forest canopy included three species new to the island and one new to Central

America.

If this area is to remain a safe harbor

for plant, animal and bird life, their jungle home must remain undisturbed. If the jungles are disturbed,

the animals will be destroyed, for, on

a jungle "island," they have nowhere

else to go. The bush dog and the giant anteater may be nearing extinction in Panama.

Jaguars, ocelots, margays and sloths,

monkeys, marmosets and coatimundi, raccoons, squirrels and kinkajous,

crocodiles and caimans may face the same fate. The rich array of flora and fauna in the Canal Zone is a legacy from a

passing era. One hopes they will become a living testimonial to wise

men who, appreciating the legacy, will work to resolve the conflict between

the pressure for rapid economic

development in the Canal area on the one hand, and the need to preserve

the natural environment to ensure the

continued existence of this serendipitous jungle on the other.

world and 20 percent of those in North

and South America occur in these

two areas. The land along the Pipeline Road is an area of relatively undisturbed tro- pical lowland wet forest which contains 240 species of birds which are

not found outside the American tro- pic . An additional 35 North American species use this area as a migratory route to South America.

The Panama Canal Review 39

wonderful

bird

is the

pelican . .
a safe haven for animals . . .

40 October 1, 1979
The rare tiger heron, the long-tongued tamandua,

the golden frog, the exotic heliconia and Charlie the crocodile are a few of the living things that thrive in the

Canal Zone's tropical forests.

The Panama Canal Review 41
plants, birds and insects

42 October 1, 1979
A delicate butterfly resting on a branch; multicolored macaws out for a stroll; the hairy sloth whose face we rarely see; stately egrets fishing in the surf; creatures

great and small each have a niche in our tropical environment.

The Panama Canal Review 43

Flowering Trees

*n&&f$ •' r

Af /ar /e/f. fhe sideu/a/k on Heights Road

across from the Governor's House is awash with the blossoms of the Guayacan. Center, the view of the Administration Building through the branches

of the Pink Cassia is reminiscent of Washington, D.C. at cherry blossom

time, while the purple Bouginvillea and

the Royal Poinciana bring La Boca Road

alive with color. At right, Flamboyant is another and very fitting name for the Royal Poinciana, seen through the window of a Gorgas Apartment-

' I

I

44 October 1, 1979

As soon as the first permanent Canal Zone towns were completed, plans for planting trees to beautify the area began immediately. The Canal Record of May 5, 1915 reported that the horticulturist in charge of the landscaping was

urging residents to join in the effort. He encouraged tasteful planting and proper community care to relieve the "glistening newness of the new concrete town of Balboa and eventually transform it into a beautiful dwelling place, delightful

to live in." As a result of these plantings, there are always some trees that are in bloom

in the Canal Zone; but it is during the dry season that the most spectacular

exhibitions occur. The array of blossoms that suddenly appears on the local trees at this time rivals the splendor of spring in the temperate zone. On these pages are some of the many flowering trees that have transformed modest Canal Zone homes into places "delightful to live in."

The Panama Canal Review 45

a man

does not plant a tree for himself,

he plants it for

posterity

—Alexander Smith

Below, the dry season breezes stir the branches of the Yellow Poinciana at the foot of the Administration Building hill creating a blur of color. At top left, motorists traveling Gaillard Highway to Gamboa will come upon the native Jacaranda, a patch of purple in the midst of green jungle. Below, the Royal

Poinciana offers its shade to a family from the "fishbowl" area in Ancon. At top right, a Flamboyant in Margarita

has become the resting place for a

boy's kite, but not for long. Below, the center of town is also beautified by the P\nk Cassia.
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Canal Zone's

Garden of

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LUXURIOUS GREEN GROWTH

in myriad of shades and

textures, delicate tropical plants and

fascinating exotics are taken for granted in the Canal Zone, where

they form a constant background

for life itself. Nonetheless, at Summit Gardens,

life-long Zone residents are filled with awe and curiousity to find themselves in the midst of 300 acres

of nature's beauty gathered from

almost every tropical and

subtropical corner of the earth. Since the establishment in 1923 of the "Canal Zone Plant Introduction

Gardens" to test, establish and

distribute valuable plants, more than

15,000 plants of an endless

assortment, size and shape have

been introduced.

Today, the Gardens have about

200 varieties of palms, some five acres of citrus trees, most of the

flora native to the Isthmus and

exotic fruit, flowering and economic

plants from as far away as India,

Sumatra, Malaya, Ceylon, China,

Burma and Borneo and as near as Panama's neighbors in Central

America.

Not far inside the gardens is the

Tropical Walk, designed for walking

tours through the area where the

heaviest concentration of plants

compete for living space in a

tropical rain forest. The entrance is lined with the fabulously beautiful Night-Blooming Cereus and with

petrified wood formed when the

Isthmus was under the sea. Scientists and industrialists have

visited the gardens to observe

experiments in the raising of teakwood or rubber or medicinal

drugs and stayed to wonder at the

strange display of nature's curios

that man has gathered in this tropical garden.

There are the Talibot, giant of palms, with 15-foot fan leaves; stands of bamboo that grow as much as a foot in 24 hours; and the "scramble eggs" tree, from which

natives make a dish they say tastes

just like scrambled eggs by boiling

and then frying the white meat of the ripe fruit. There are magosteens, a fruit called the "queen of the tropics"

described as tasting like a combination of all one's favorite fruits; and

the "miraculous fruit" that

temporarily kills all sour taste buds on the tongue so one can eat the sourest of lemons without the

slightest puckering of the lips. And there is a profusion of orchids in almost limitless variety

with blooms that may last a single

day or for two months and whose

flower stalks may be a few inches

long or 20 feet long.

Above all there is Summit

Garden's gift of a recuperative lift to the spirit for those who will pause to contemplate the wondrous cycles of the delights of nature.

Above: This orchid, which grows at Summit, is found in Mexico and many

parts of South America. Below: The lily pond, a favorite picnic spot. Bottom: The sun shining through a bamboo

forest creates a distinctively tropical aura.

The Panama Canal Review 49

't

Bartw

Era of the

"SuperCarrier"

Begins

By Willie K. Friar THE TRANSIT OF THE BARBER

Toba in March of this year

signaled the arrival of the age of the "SuperCarrier," the newest concept

in shipping. The first of the Barber Blue Sea

Line's fleet of six, this extraordinarily

versatile vessel is capable of carrying

trailers, containers, and

a great variety

of other cargo by utilizing the most modern and sophiscated roll-on/rolloff cargo handling equipment available. The significant difference between

this vessel and earlier designs is the hinged ramp that is as wide as a twolane highway. It is this ramp at the

stern of the ship that attracted so much interest during the transit of the

Canal. Starting out with

a minimum

width of 40 feet and gradually

increasing to 82 feet at the hinge, the huge, angled ramp allows unrestricted two-way traffic for moving cargo on

and off the ship. With the capability for easier, safer and more efficiently controlled traffic movement, it is possible for the Barber Toba, to handle up to 800 tons of cargo an

hour.

The "Barber Toba" moves through

Gaillard Cut on her maiden voyage.
Described by the ship's owners as

"the greatest cargo handling tool ever

invented," this ramp has a load

bearing capacity of 400 tons which is equivalent to the weight of 50 sixtypassenger schoolbuses.

Trailer cargo, known as roll-on/rolloff or "ro-ro" in the shipping trade, has

become an increasingly popular way

of moving goods in many world ports

including those in the United States,

and Panama. The trailers are simply

driven on an off the ships.

However, it is not the trailer carrying capability that is noteworthy on the Barber Toba but the flexibility of carrying and handling all types of cargo and being able to be completely

self-sufficient in loading and dis- charging. The Barber Toba carries its own fleet of forklifts, trailers, and

gigantic crane, which can lift up to 40

tons. This capability makes it a valuable means of transport for developing

countries in South America, the Far

East and the Middle East, where often

only limited cargo handling facilities are available. The fast loading and

unloading capability is a great asset

also in ports, such as Miami, where

crowded conditions make turnaround

time very important. It has been

Above: The "Barber Toba" uses her ramp, which is as wide as a two-lane highway,

to handle a variety of trailers and containers. At left: The gigantic hinged ramp is folded against the stern of the vessel as she moves through Miraflores Locks.

estimated by its owners that it costs about $25,000 a day in operating

expenses to keep a ship like the

Barber Toba in port. Depending on

the weather, this ship and its sisters can move into a port, load or unload,

and leave in a matter of hours.

Another innovation on this ship is

its containerized office. All loading and

discharging operations are controlled

by crew members operating from this special office. It is stored aboard

the ship and lifted into place at quayside near the stern ramp at each port to coordinate cargo handling activities. Supervisors and other crew members

drive around the vessel in four-wheel

electric cars keeping in contact with

the portside operations office by

walkie-talkies. The flexibility and versatility of these SuperCarriers allows them to transport all types of containers and

rolling stock. Cars and other wheeled

vehicles can be driven aboard and do

not have to be boxed.

The deck for carrying cars has a

special surface which prevents shifting

and eliminates damage during the voyage. When cars are not being

carried, this deck is hoisted up to make room for more containers on

the deck below.

It took nine months to build the

Barber Toba, which is 749 feet in length and 105 feet in beam, at a cost

of $33 million. It cost more than a

million dollars just to equip the engine room and bridge which have the most

modern instruments available today.

This includes computerized anti- collision radar, a satellite navigation

receiver, gyro compass, echo sounder,

electromagnetic log, weather facsimile, radio equipment and an alarm

system connected to 250 sensors for safe operation of the engine room.

Although capable of carrying up to 1,800 20- foot containers, 400 auto- mobiles and 2,150,000 cubic feet of baled cargo, the ship requires a crew

of only 27. Facilities for the crew (both

men and women) include a swimming

pool, exercise room, recreation room,

library and private cabins with baths

for each member of the crew. When the Barber Toba, a Norwegian flag ship transited the Canal, she was carrying mainly containerized

cargo from the Far East including

electronics, textiles, handicrafts, tile, cars, and yachts, from Japan, Hong

Kong, Taiwan, and Korea, to be

transported to the United States. After the ship leaves U.S. ports, it

will head for the Middle East, with a

different cargo which will be, for the

most part, rolling stock including

heavy machinery, and oil drilling

equipment.

A British, Norwegian, and Swedish

consortium, Barber Blue Sea is investing nearly $200 million in a fleet of six of these advanced multi-purpose

vessels, which are to be regular

customers of the Canal.

The agent for Barber Blue Sea at the Canal is C. B. Fenton & Co.

52 October 1, 1979
One of the largest dipper dredges in the world, the "Rialto M. Christensen" works in Mamei Curve removing islands and widening the Canal to provide a safer passage

for the increasing number of large ships. Below: Telephoto lens captures heavv traffic

in Gaillard Cut and Pedro Miguel Locks. At right: A container ship in Gatun Locks

and ships moving under the fog shrouded bridge that spans the Canal at Balboa.

The Panama Canal Review 53
pru!

MID McCULLOUGH

THE PATH

BETWEEN

THE SEAS * * * * * I |^"S | * « * * * THE CREATION OF THE

PANAMA CANAL*1870'1914

m Hj -

All Thafs Left

Is Her Whistle

By Robert H. Burgess

SHE WAS A GRAND LADY IN

her day. She had to be for selection in the role she was to play in the

opening of the Panama Canal. However, she wasn't all that glamorous.

Instead, she was just another of the

hundreds of pieces of equipment which

did the job thoroughly and helped

bring the entire project to completion.

She was a lowly tugboat which pulled scows laden with mud and rock

dredged from the Canal site from 1906

to its opening in 1914. Then she re- mained on the job in the Canal Zone

for 16 more years helping to clear

slides, dock ships, and numerous

other tasks assigned to a craft of all

Her brass fittings highly polished, the "Gatun" steamed ahead of the "Ancon" on the inaugural transit of the Canal August 15, 1914. Above: The "Gatun" can be seen clearly in the painting that appears on the dust jacket of the recent book about the Canal, "The Path Between the Seas."

54 October 1, 1979
trades. This was the steel tug Gatun

which was given the honor of being the

first vessel to transit any of the locks of the Panama Canal.

Gatun started her career in 1902,

having been built that year by the

well-known shipbuilding firm of Neafie

& Levy of Philadelphia. Measuring

91 feet in length, she was originally

named H. B. Chamberlain and owned

by Boot, Dailey & Irving, with a home

port in New York. It is probable that her job was to shunt scows and barges

around New York harbor and possibly

assist ships in docking—but not for long. In 1906, as the United States was

gaining momentum in developing the

Canal, a search was made for floating

equipment to assist in the monumental task. The Chamberlain was pur- chased by the Isthmian Canal Commission, Atlantic Division, for $65,000

and renamed Gatun. She was based

at the Atlantic end and assigned the mundane but important job of towing

mud barges and shifting other equipment.

There were other tugs in the

Canal's fleet but somehow the Gatun

seemed to stand out in the limelight a

little more than these judging from

some of her other assignments.

Inspection parties would board her to view the progress of the work. And

occasionally she was used to trans- port and transfer prominent members

of the Canal's staff and government

officials. After Chief Engineer John

F. Stevens resigned his job on March 31, 1907, he boarded the

Gatun at Pier 11 at Cristobal to be

taken to the liner Panama to return to the States. Gatun was just an ordinary tug,

nothing fancy about her makeup, but

her crew must have taken especial

pride in her appearance. Photos taken

of her during her early years at Pan- ama reveal all her brass fittings

glistening in the sun, the rims of her

portholes, the searchlight and bin- nacle atop her pilothouse, door knobs

and locks, running lights, and fire hose

nozzles. Around the topsides of her

hull and draped over her bow, were

large rope mats to protect her sides

when she was working with the heavy,

rugged scows and dredges.

Come the latter part of 1913, the

Canal was readied for operation. Just how the selection was made is not known but the tug Gatun was given

The Gatun

led the way

on opening day

the honor of being the first vessel to pass through a set of the Canal locks. She was cleaned up and for the

occasion bedecked with flags as she

departed from Colon for the Gatun

Locks. Additional lifejackets had been

placed around her main deck in anticipation of the extra passengers she was to carry on that trip. Folding

chairs were placed on her upper deck

under a permanent canvas awning to accommodate the dignitaries. But her

rugged rope mats remained in position

overside indicating that she was a working vessel taking a holiday for the

day. And a special one it was.

Bedecked with flags, the tug "Gatun" enters Gatun Locks, September 26, 1913 to become the first vessel to pass through the newly completed lock chambers.

The Panama Canal Review 55
On September 25, 1913, pre- liminary tests and filling of the Gatun

Locks were made and all operated as

planned. The 26th had been selected

to lift the Gatun from the sea channel

to the Gatun Lake level, using the west flight, because of the imminent

departure from the Isthmus of Maj.

James P. Jervey, who had charge of the masonry construction of Gatun

Locks, and of Maj. George M. Hoff- man, who had charge of the building of

The steam tug "Chester," formerly

"Gatun," was tied up at Pratt Street, Baltimore, Maryland, in June 1958

just before being sold for scrapping. At left: The steam whistle from the tug is now mounted on a wooden

block at the author's home.

The small whistle at lower right, used to assist in docking ships, was added after the tug left the Canal Zone.

Gatun Dam, as assistants to their

chief, Lt. Col. William L. Sibert. At 11:20 a.m., water was admitted

to the upper end of the upper lock

from the west culvert through the

upper rising stem valves and the water was brought up to lake level. The

upper rising stem valves were then

closed and this water was passed

down the flight of three locks as a pre- liminary test of the valves and culverts

of the west wall. Water was then

locked down, step by step, from the

lake to the lower lock, which was also being filled by the two 14-inch sea

valves in the lower guard gates.

On board the Gatun, in addition to her regular crew, were Col. H. F. Hodges, Lt. Col. and Mrs. William L. Sibert and family, Maj. and Mrs. James P. Jervey, Maj. George M.

Hoffman, Lt. and Mrs. George W.

Goethals (the Chief Engineer's son),

Mr. Henry Goldmark, Mrs. Edward

Schildhauer, Mrs. E. E. Lee, Capt.

B. Corning of the steamship Panama,

and Mr. Frank Thompson of the

Panama Railroad. Capt. F. F. Stewart was master of the tug and Mr. W. G.

Comber was chief navigator.

The filling of the lower lock was

completed by 4:45 p.m. when the sea

gate was opened. The Gatun, with

whistle blowing and flags streaming in the breeze, steamed up the approach

channel and past the entrance to the

lower lock, cheers from the spectators

resounding within the lock. The lower

operating gates were then closed and

the tug came to a halt alongside the center wall. Col. George W. Goethals was on top of the lock wall watching

the proceedings.

The operation was repeated in the

middle lock and at 6:15 p.m. the Gafun entered the upper lock of the

last lift. Half an hour later the two last gates were swung open and the tug

passed out on to Gatun Lake, the

whole passage requiring 1 hour and

51 minutes. The next day the Gatun

returned to the Atlantic channel, the

lockage taking 1 hour and 37 minutes.

On October 9, 1913, three groups

of dredging vessels and a floating pile

driver, in tow of tugs, a total of 13

vessels, were lifted at one time from

the Atlantic entrance channel to the

surface of Gatun Lake, using the entire 1,000 foot length of each chamber.

The second group consisted of the Gatun with the suction dredge No. 86, several pontoons, and a fuel oil barge

in tow. More honors were bestowed upon

the Gatun when she was selected as consort to the steamship Ancon on

the official opening of the Canal on

August 15, 1914. There is a photo of her steaming just ahead of the Ancon,

approaching Cucaracha Slide, but she

probably dropped astern at the appro56 October 1, 1979
6 Months FY 1979
Pacific to Atlantic

6 Months 6 Months Commodity FY 1979 FY 1978 Petroleum and products 16,370,359 10,102,124 Manufactures of iron and steel 2,761,109 4,108,626 Lumber and products 2,707,316 2,432,983 Ores, various 2,364,664 2,478,799 Coal and coke 1,562,542 630,473 Sugar 933,722 1,469,290 Food in refrigeration (excluding bananas) 933,267 873,976 Pulpwood 868,870 768, 143 Bananas 755,764 843,718

Metals, various 692,966 704,462

Sulfur 633,396 464,671 Autos, trucks, and accessories 549,006 579,526

Salt 456,742 314,613 Fishmeal 424, 136 240,485 Wheat _ 396,348 554,930

All other 6,030,155 5,908,766

Total 38,440,362 32,475,585

CANAL TRANSITS—COMMERCIAL AND U.S. GOVERNMENT

6 Months FY 1979

Atlantic Pacific to to Commercial: Pacific Atlantic Total Oceangoing 3,391 3,096 6,487 Small 1 317 168 485

Total 3,708 3,264 6,972

U.S. Government:

Oceangoing 22 25 47 Small 1 72 76 148

Total 94 101 195 Grand Total 3,802 3,365 7,167

6 Months FY

1978 6,054 327

6,381

45

104

149

6,530

PRINCIPAL COMMODITIES SHIPPED THROUGH THE CANAL

(in long tons)

Atlantic to Pacific

6 Months 6 Months Commodity FY 1979 FY 1978 Corn 7,126,998 4,479,041 Petroleum and products 5,643,842 5,098,725 Coal and coke 5,624,675 4,129,163 Soybeans 3,363,955 2,883,453 Wheat 2,851,969 1,332,006 Phosphate 2,795,941 2,219, 164

Metal, scrap 1,937,733 751,867 Sorghum 1,446,366 1,490,771 Chemicals and petroleum chemicals 1,119,858 899,075 Manufactures of iron and steel 816,912 997,099 Sugar 735,883 554,090

Ores, varios _... 696,038 759,013

Fertilizers, unclassified 567,414 716,011 Caustic soda 403,210 272,937 Ammonium compounds 343,928 319,537

All other 5,690,358 4,602,976

Total 41,165,080 31,504,928

'Vessels under 300 net tons, Panama Canal measurement, or under 500 displacement tons. Statistics compiled by the Executive Planning Staff.

the light. Manning a small boat, the

keeper went to the aid of 4 men who

had jumped off the stricken vessel as she settled beneath the waters of Chesapeake Bay, and also recovered

the body of the engineer who had died

of a heart attack after he had jumped

from the tug.

The Point Breeze was later raised,

renamed Chester the next year, and

resumed her career around Baltimore

harbor. In 1957 the Curtis Bay Towing

Co., of Baltimore, was recorded as her owner. Most of that firm's craft were newer diesel tugs less historical than the former Gatun but more

suited to the needs of modern

shipping. The Chester was laid up to await a purchaser but the only offer came from a scrapyard.

In late 1958 the Chester was

acquired by the salvage firm of Martin

G. Imbach, Inc. in Baltimore for breaking up. This writer long knew of the earlier career of the Chester, her

historic association with the Panama

Canal, and desired to preserve some

relic from the craft. As the tug was

being cut apart by torches, I was able

to secure her brass steam whistle, 4 feet in length including its release

valve, before it was shattered for melting down. If anything on the tug was original from her Canal days,

other than her rugged hull, I felt it was

the steam whistle which had blown so

vigorously as the Gatun made her

entry into the first of the Gatun Locks

that eventful day in September 1913

when the world was shown that a

vessel could be lifted from the Caribbean level to that of Gatun Lake.

A whistle is just about indestructible. Only the valve, a separate unit, needs

occasional replacing. This whistle

compares favorably with the one

appearing in photos of the Gatun

taken at the time of the opening of the

Canal when its hoarse tones echoed

around the sides of the locks 65

years ago.

It is quite possible that this steam

whistle, now mounted on a wooden

block in the author's home, is the only

portion of that historic ship in existence and serves as a reminder

of the beginning of a new era in world

shipping. And certainly the Gatun was

one of the most long-lived of any of the numerous vessels which participated

in the construction of the Panama

Canal.

58 October 1, 1979
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Mary and Herbert Knapp are

teachers in the Canal Zone schools.

They currently are at work on a book

about life in the Canal Zone entitled An Ambiguous Utopia. It is a

retrospective view of the unique

community where those who built and operated the Panama Canal lived and worked for 75 years. The

following article is a digest of a

chapter from that book. The Knapps

are also the authors of One Potato,

Two Potato: The Secret Education

of American Children (Norton,

1976).

THE AMERICAN CANAL ZONE

in Panama belongs squarely in the

American Utopian tradition that runs from the Puritan "City upon a Hill" in seventeenth century Massachusetts

to the latest condo "paradise" in Miami.

Not many of the blue-collar aristo- crats or shirt-sleeved bureaucrats

who lived on the Zone ever thought of

it as a utopia, but when they came to the Zone they became part of a smallscale, managerial society designed

according to a fairly rigid plan. The

theory was that a pervasive paternalism with a corresponding restric- tion of certain liberties would result in the happiness, well-being, and most

importantly, in the productiveness of the people.

It wasn't a perfect society, but

Utopias never are, except in books.

Real Utopias are experiments. They

take place somewhat apart from the

real world, somewhere between eutopia, "a good place," and outopia, "no

place." That's right where the Canal

Zone used to be, along with Brook

Farm, the Oneida Community, Orderville, New Harmony, and hundreds

of other American social experiments.

By Mary and Herbert Knapp

Of course, those in charge of the

canal project didn't plan the Zone as a

social experiment. When Charles

Magoon, second governor of the

Zone, proposed establishing a model

government, he was plainly told that the Isthmian Canal Commission was

in Panama to build a canal, period.

Nevertheless, as the canal workers'

communities developed, the Zone

increasingly resembled the society

described by Edward Bellamy in his

futuristic Utopian novel, Looking

Backward.

Few people know that book today,

but in the decade following its publication in 1888, Looking Backward outsold anything ever published

in America except Uncle Tom's

Cabin. It appealed to "brains" and

"roughnecks" alike; to wild-eyed

socialist agitators and dewy-eyed

social belles. Bellamy's admirers or- ganized themselves and became a

political force. In 1935 three American

intellectuals called Looking Backward

the second most influential book of the preceding half-century! According

to John Dewey, James Beard, and

Edward Weeks, only Das Kapital had more influence upon the world than

Looking Backward.

The resemblance of the Canal Zone

to Bellamy's imaginary society didn't go unnoticed. A visitor reported in 1913, "The dream of the late Edward

Bellamy is given actuality on the

Zone"; about the same time Canal

Zone Policeman 88 testified, "It strongly resembles what Bellamy

dreamed of years ago." And as late as

1928, a Zonian was still explaining to

tourists that her community was

frequently referred to as "resembling

Bellamy's Looking Backward." She

went on to say, "When Bellamy

journeyed across the Isthmus —in the

eighties —Panama certainly did not present a possibility, even to the most

visionary, of eventually becoming the nearest approach to . . . the ideal of the

Utopia that his remarkable book

pictures."

But it would be a mistake to suppose Looking Backward provided

a blueprint for the Canal Zone. The

Zone resembled several nineteenth

century literary Utopias, Etienne Cabet's Voyage en Icarie (1840), for instance. By the end of the nineteenth

century a lot of people had come to

similar conclusions about what a

better world would be like. It would be

very much like the Canal Zone.

In Cabet's utopia, everyone works

for the government, which owns the

factories, cultivates the land, and

provides clothing and household

furnishings —as was more or less the case in the Canal Zone. But the

uncanny thing about Cabet's Icaria is that it looks like the Zone. The city of Icaria is divided by a river that has been deepened and straightened to accommodate large ships.

The river's banks have been fronted

by straight walls. On an island in the

middle of the river is a palace

surrounded by trees and gardens, and

on the terrace of the palace is a statue

The Panama Canal Review 59
of Icar, the founder, which overlooks

the city. The Zone, too was divided by a waterway, a canal, not a river, but the Chagres River was deepened and

straightened to form the Canal, and at the locks one even sees the banks of the "river" enclosed in straight walls. The Zone's equivalent of Icaria's palace was the Administration Build- ing—known on the Zone as "The

Building" —as if there were no other. It

is not on an island in the middle of the Canal, but it sits on a hill that rises like an island in the middle of the city of Balboa, and it overlooks the Canal. It

is also surrounded by carefully ar- ranged trees and plants. On the

Building's terrace, between the flags of the United States and Panama, is a

". . . how resourceful they are at devising methods to keep

the streets clean."

large rock taken from the Cut —not a statue of the founder, but a monument

to the founders: "Dedicated to the

builders of the Panama Canal . . ." The most oustanding feature of

Icaria is its cleanliness. The character

in Cabet's novel who describes the

Icarians breaks into excited italics when he mentions how "resourceful

they are at devising methods to keep

the streets clean." He oh's and ah's about "subterranean canals" that drain water from the streets and about

the absence of dust and mud.

His paradise is more notable for what it lacks than for what it contains.

He says that the eyes of the citizens of

Icaria are not offended by street- corner hangouts, advertisements, graffiti, "rich and pretty shops," or "those

paintings of nudes or voluptuous

scenes. . . . Such pictures no husband

would want his wife and the mother of

his children to behold."

Anyone who ever lived on the Zone

will be struck by its similarities to

Icaria. The Zone, too, was remarkably ! clean. Its grass was kept cut; its trash,

promptly removed. An admirable

system of subterranean canals, cre- ated by Zone engineers, drained water

from the streets, sidewalks, and

airfields, mud was not something the

average Zonian worried about —ex- cept mothers. Children often sought it out for games of mud football and mud

sliding.

And like Icaria, the Zone was

notable for what it lacked—cabarets,

gaming houses, establishments of culpable pleasures. No commercial

advertisements cluttered its land- scape or airwaves. The Zone's televi- sion station advertized only morality

and the military life. As for voluptuous

scenes, a Zonian who wished to purchase Playboy at the Company

commissary had to wait while the

clerk took it from under the counter

and stapled it inside a paper bag. The

Zone, however, was never as pure as

Icaria. It never, for instance, reached

the point where it could do without

gendarmes.

Unlike Cabet, who emphasizes the

cleanliness and geometric order of his Utopia, Bellamy emphasizes the or- ganization of labor and the distribu- tion of wealth in his. Bellamy's Utopia

doesn't have so much the look of the

Zone as the "feel"of it. As a story, Looking Backward is pretty corny. But Bellamy wasn't

trying to write a literary masterpiece.

He was a social reformer who wanted

to promote equality and brotherhood—his "Religion of Solidarity"

and to make men less materialistic. The central institution of his dream

world is the Industrial Army. Every- one from age twenty-one to fortyfive belongs. Related industries are grouped into ten divisions. The

President of the United States, or

"the general-in-chief," is chosen from

among the retired division-chiefs. Only retired workers can vote, but

everyone retires at forty-five. From

twenty-one to twenty-four, everyone

works as an apprentice or a laborer. His performance is regularly evaluated. Those with the highest scores

get first choice of occupational

specialities. There are three grades in each industry and two classes in each

grade.

The Zone was never quite like this, but it came close. Zonians were ^ certainly members of an Industrial Army, one that included 1,754 dif- ferent kinds of jobs. Only the

Department of Defense listed a

greater variety. And the Canal Army

was organized much like Bellamy's

Army. The Zone, too, had its divisions —Electrical, Dredging, In- dustrial, Railroad, Schools, and so on. What's more, all Zone workers were

classified NM-9 or GS- 10 or whatever,

much like those in Bellamy's world.

But Zonians weren't required to work

as laborers for two years in their twenties, though the Zone did have a

flourishing apprentice program. Nor

did Zonians retire at forty-five and

vote for their governor.

Age entitles you to privileges in Bellamy's paradise, and as a result, he was accused of advocating gerontocracy. On the Zone, age alone didn't

entitle you to a thing, but length of service —ah, that was another matter. Length of service on the Zone could

get you what money couldn't buy

assignment to the house of your

choice.

Bellamy wanted to eliminate ostentatious displays of wealth which he

thought were socially divisive, so everyone in his Utopia received

exactly the same pay —from generals

to the inhabitants of insane asylums.

Officers in the Industrial Army were

rewarded with prestige and power but not cash. At the year's end, all unused

money reverted to the state, so you

couldn't get ahead of your neighbor by

saving.

To further discourage people from

buying things just to impress the

Joneses, Bellamy standardized all products and eliminated competing

retail outlets. Everyone shopped at the government store, where no new product was introduced unless

customers petitioned for it. People on the Zone were never

economically equal, but there was a good deal more visible equality there

than in most places. The limited kinds ( of housing available contributed to

this impression of a relatively narrow

range of inequality. And there was

simply not much scope for con- spicuous consumption in a community where everyone lived in rented

60 October 1, 1979
quarters and did most of his shopping

at the "commy."

Did the Zone's approximation of Bellamy's vision work? Did it en- courage brotherhood? There was

never any lack of squabbling on

the Zone—especially about housing.

Sometimes the smaller the difference

between two houses, the greater

difference it made to people—a point

planners of future Utopias would do

well to consider. And visiting writers

often note that social divisions continued to exist, something no Zonian

would deny.

The problem was that the Zone was

a one company community. There was no satisfactory way to achieve

prominence outside the Company

hierarchy. As a result, the social prestige of the hierarchy went unchallenged, though it was sometimes

resented.

On the other hand, in a book

published in 1928, a Zone resident

keeps referring to the "democratic

setting" of the Zone, and she praises

the governor for his "democratic

manner." Clearly she's not referring to a political system but to an atmos- phere of informality. If people did not meet as equals on the Zone, they

nonetheless met. The smallness of the

Zone accounted for that. And usually

Zonians were spared the pomp

and circumstance of ostentatious in- equality. Then, too, they shared a connection with an historic enterprise. All this may help explain why

ex-Zonians who did not socialize on

the Zone tend to greet one another

like fraternity brothers when they

meet elsewhere.

Bellamy's second goal was to make

men less materialistic. He assumed

that given a margin of economic

security, people would lose their taste

for accumulating possessions. It never

quite worked that way on the Zone,

but for years the lack of air- conditioning on the Isthmus drastically limited the kinds of possessions

a Zonian could have. In those days the

sparseness and standardization of household furnishings would have

pleased the most puritanical of Bellamy's disciples.

Even after the introduction of the

air-conditioning in 1957-1958, the re- strictions on private enterprise and

the simplicity of life on the Zone

encouraged Zonians to devote themselves to a remarkable range of nonmaterialist avocations, ranging from

volunteer community work to charting butterfly refuge areas in Central

America.

The Zone never provided its residents with the array of choices and

opportunities for personal development one finds in the United States. What it did provide was time. People

lived close to their jobs; no one spent

hours every day commuting to work.

Nor were people offered a great

variety of professional entertainment.

There was plenty of time to "do one's own thing" on the Zone.

Those things included studying

shells, antique bottles, rocks, dialects,

and South American folk dances.

There were orchid men on the Zone,

and snake men, bug men, bird men.

Painters, potters, pathfinders.- Experts on stage lighting, skin-diving,

molas and the music of Elgar.

And all of these avocations carried

Zonians beyond the boundary of the

Zone into Panamanian theatrical and

musical circles, Panamanian service

organizations, kennel clubs, motorcycle competitions, sports arenas, and of course, into Panama's mountains and jungles.

One of the drawbacks of the Zone

as a Utopia is that is was too small. Few

could have remained happy on the

Zone for long had it not been for Panama and United States "out there"

with their broader horizons. For all its virtues, the Zone was a limited place.

But then so was Bellamy's utopia. Just as life on the Zone revolved

around maintaining and operating the

Canal, so life in Bellamy's utopia

revolves around maintaining and

operating his system. One problem

with Utopias is that once you're there,

there's no place to go. For that reason neither the Zone

nor Bellamy's timeless dreamland

could fully accommodate American

ideals. Like the Zone, Bellamy's utopia

contains no political parties. There

were no political campaigns and no

campaign promises. And in the tiny

regulated world of the Zone, there was

no room for the impossible dream.

But one should not overlook the Zone's considerable virtues. It was a

beguiling place —not a twentieth century dream of kaleidoscopic change,

consumption, and magic, but a nineteenth century dream of cleanliness, preservation, and rationality.

And though the Zone was centrally

controlled from "The Building," in- dividual communities had distinct characteristics. Bellamy would have

approved of that. His utopia was

meant to combine the advantages of diversity and unity.

For instance, in construction days a workman described Ancon as on the

way up socially, but insecure compared to Cristobal, "the most 'Statesy' of all Canal villages." Gorgona was

unruly but hospitable; Empire, arty; "Pedro Miguelites were given to cardplaying"; Paraiso was serious and

charitable. Some of these towns

disappeared long ago, and the atmos- phere of others changed over the

years. But any ex-Zonian will have his

". . . dedicated to the builders of the Panama Canal ..."

own memories of the distinctive atmosphere of his "Canal village."

Bellamy was one of the first planners who wanted to balance

technology and nature. Perhaps in no

place did men come closer to doing

that than in the Canal Zone, where

the Canal was our machine; the Zone, our garden.

Among the hundreds of 'nineteenth century Utopian

experiments in the United States was an effort to found Icana.

led by Cabet himself At various limes there were Icarian

settlements near The Red River in Texas; at Cheltenham,

Missouri; Nauvoo. Illinois; Corning. Iowa; and Cloverdale.

California. By 1887 all had failed and the Icanans became

Americans

On next page:

Aerial view of Balboa.

The Panama Canal Review 61

«. #

Ss*^"
The lights on the Thatcher Ferry Bridge come on as the sun sets over the Canal on the Pacific side of the Isthmus. Below: Ancon

Hill is silhouetted and Gorgas Hospital is clearly uisible in the night photo taken from the Lottery Building in Panama City.

64 October 1, 1979
The Canal Zone At Night

Like beacons in the night, the lights of

the Canal provide the illumination vital to its 24-hour operation. Below:

Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks

stand out in the darkness. At right: A

1915 night photograph of the Administration Building to compare with our cover photograph. Inside the back

cover: The Fort Amador Causeway is outlined by the lights of cars and in the Canal a streak of light indicates the movement of a ship.

I HIHI ^ i .



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