Gift ofthe Panama Canal Museum THE

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Vol. 4, No. 4

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BALBOA HEIGHTS, CANAL ZONE, NOVEMBER 6, 1953 5 cents Change Of Directors

HENRY T . DO.N'O' A\, right, discusses business with Wilson Crook who became Acting Community

Services Director last week when Mr. Donovan, who had headed the bureau since its organization, was

appointed Civil Affairs Director. Mr. Donovan, who succeeded Col. Richardson Selee on the latter's resignation, has been with the Canal organization for 2-1 years. Mr. Crook has 25 years service with the Canal.

First Quarters In New Corozal Area

Will Be Occupied During Coming Week

A new Canal Zone town, still to be

officially christened, is coming to life. The first 100 or so residents of the new

community at Corozal are expected to occupy the recently completed houses

during the coming week. Simultaneous with this event is the opening of the Canal's 1954 fiscal year

quarters construction program. A contract was awarded late last month to Isthmian Constructors, Inc., low bidder

for the construction of 33 duplex masonry

buildings at Diablo Heights. These are

all Type 336 houses which are two-story

buildings with each apartment containing

three bedrooms on the second floor. The completion of the first of the 128 new buildings at Corozal marked the clos- ing phase of the 1953 building program,

all other houses in other areas having

been completed and occupied.

The Corozal program is divided into three zones Zone 1 consists of 77 houses, 98 apartments, of which 33 buildings were

to be transferred this week to the Housing

Division. These buildings, 37 apartments, were rushed to completion by the

contractor, Macco-Panpacific Company,

because of an accelerated demolition

program in Balboa Flats. These 37 apart- ments were assigned early last month.

The remaining 44 buildings in Zone 1 are scheduled for completion at the rate of 10 to 15 a week during this month with

all work in that zone being finished about

the first of December. Zone 2 consists of 24 buildings, 36

apartments, which are scheduled for completion by February 18. The remainder, 27 houses with 34 apartments, are in Zone 3 which is slated for completion by

April 19. Town To Be Named By Vote The new town is to be named by a popular vote of Pacific side residents. The Pacific Civic Council has been invited

to conduct a poll of all U. S.-rate residents

in Pacific side communities exclusive of Gamboa. The popular vote is to be

conducted during this month and the Governor expects to give the new community a name by December 1 to avoid

confusing it with the Army Post of Corozal. Sam Roe, Jr., President of the Pacific Civic Council, announced following re- ceipt of the invitation that the poll will be taken next week simultaneously with

the annual election of members to the

Council. In many respects the (See page to)

THIS MONTH'S FEATURES

• Canal To Greet First Monarch—page 3 • Medical Association, Part I —page 5 • Building 69, Where Everyone Goes—page 8 • Gatun, History of a Town—page 10

Hospital Insurance

Plans For Employees

Are Being Pushed

Negotiations are still in progress on plans for health and

hospitalization insurance for

Panama Canal employees to be

paid by payroll deductions.

No difficulties are presently foreseen in providing some form of coverage for employees by the two groups now conducting

negotiations. The Canal Zone Credit

Union has had the matter of hospitalization insurance for U. S.-rate employees

under study now for several weeks. A

special committee composed of leading

local-rate employees has been formed to

establish an organization for handling

insurance for local-rate employees.

It is expected that plans for both groups

of employees will have been formulated

well in advance of next January 1 when

charges for hospital and medical services

wil

1 be made for employees.

It has been announced that enYployee

rates for medical and hospital services will be at approximately the level now in effect

for dependents of Canal employees. The

medical tariff is being revised and is expected to be ready for publication by

the December issue of The Review.

Required by Law

The discontinuance of free hospital and

medical services for employees after De- cember 31, 1953, is required under Section 106 of the Civil Functions Appropriations Act of 1954.

Officials of the Credit Union have

announced that the organization is pre- pared to assist in making available hospitalization insurance to U. S.-rate employees by the payroll deduction plan. In this connection the officials have been

negotiating with various insurance companies offering this type of coverage. Up

to now none of the companies has offered a group insurance plan and only individual

policies are presently available. One com- pany submitted a proposal on group

insurance but later withdrew it. The Credit Union has announced that

it will offer its service to both members

and other U. S.-rate employees as a civic project. The service will be offered on a

nonprofit basis, with only the added

expense in handling the accounts to be

recovered.Steering Committee

Plans for hospitalization insurance for local-rate employees are being developed

by the Non-U. S. Citizen Employees

Hospital Insurance Association. A. E. Osborne is Chairman of an 11-man steer- ing committee organizing the association. This group has had several meetings and

has also conferred with insurance companies concerning rates. Permanent officers for (See page w)
THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

"Service Centers"

Suggested As Name

For C. Z. Clubhouses

Talented Quintet

A proposal that the Panama Canal

Clubhouses be known as Service Centers was presented to Civic Council representatives at their October meeting with

( rovernor J. S. Seybold.

The proposal was relayed to the conference from the Community Services

office with the comment that the proposed

designation would more fittingly describe

the services offered by the clubhouse

units. Moreover, the recommendation said, questions are frequently asked during

Congressional hearings as to why "club- houses" are furnished for employees and

the Canal "clubhouses" are often confused

in such circumstances with military

service units like Officers Clubs. As usual, the matters brought up before

the conference covered a wide range of subjects.

Health Problems

Brigadier General Don Longfellow

Health Director, told the representatives that it has been found possible to keep

the Pedro Miguel -dispensary open for the

present, at least. He warned that further budgetary cuts would call for a reexamination and reconsideration of this. Both he and Governor Seybold said that attempts to recruit doctors for the Canal Zone health service has been intensified, but without much success to date. As an added inducement, the Governor

said, doctors coming to the Canal organization will be given arbitrary assignments

to quarters.

It is a matter of "prime importance to provide medical care for our people" the Governor told the conference. In answer to a question as to a dispen- sary for Margarita, the conference was

told that this, as well as the situation of the plant at Colon Hospital, will depend

on the outcome of talks on hospital

consolidation.

Commissaries, Clubhouses

All of the civic councils have now

approved the suggestion that the Margarita and Diablo Heights commissaries open Monday from 1-8 p. m. and close Wednesdays and it is expected that this

will be done in the near future, the

conferees were told. The Governor reported that the price

of half-pint bottles of milk at the Balboa

Clubhouse school luncheonette will be reduced 5 cents in price, but only when

they are purchased in connection with the

special school luncheon. Regarding an- other school matter, he said that repairs are being made to the walls of the

Cristobal school cafeteria. The question of a marquee for the

Cristobal commissary is still under study, he said; other representatives then asked

about marquees for the Gamboa, Pedro

Miguel, and Balboa schools, and these questions will be looked into. An unverified report that unauthorized

persons were attending the movies at

Cristobal Clubhouse brought an emphatic

AUTHORS ALL The five Canal Zone women above and to the right are the

authors and illustrator of two chil- dren's books published recently.

Above, the three authors of "The

Pelican Tree and Other Panama Adventures" Jean Bailey, Elizabeth Lamb,

and Patricia Markun, watch illustrator Jeanne Beaudry at work. The name

of their book, which was published by

the North River Press, comes from a

tree near the Balboa Yacht Club where

pelicans frequently roost. Original

drawings for the book and its dust

jacket are now on display at the Library

Museum.

Marguerite Nix of Gatun, right, wrote "What The Little Fairy Saw"

from stories she told her children when

they were small. It has been published

by Pageant Press and is illustrated by

cartoonist Al Kilgore.

remark from the Governor that he wants

contraband stopped. He promised to

act at once on verified cases of this or any

other sort of contraband. While study is progressing on conversion to 60-cycle current, he told the

conferees, it will be possibly six years

before the conversion is completed, assuming the continuity of the program. He

said that reports that Gatun would be on 60-cycle current next year were not

true. What will be done about converting

employees' household appliances will be up to the Board of Directors; some deci- sion will be made soon on this question, he added.

Range Of Subjects

Other questions raised during the conference included: Guarantees on tires bought at the Motor Transportation Division and Store- houses: This is considered impracticable but adjustments will be made on defective

tires after individual inspection;

A request that the Panama Line sell railroad tickets for use of vacationing employees: Impossible because the Line is operating for the transport of employees

between the Canal Zone and the United

States and can engage in no outside commercial activities beyond the scope of its own facilities. Connections for automatic washing

machines in the new quarters: Quarters

built after fiscal year 1952 have these connections. Matters which will be studied included: A complaint that the Motor Transportation Division is not equipped to handle

minor repairs over weekends; lack of free parking space for employees of the corrals on both sides of the Zone; transfer of most of the men's wearing apparel stock from Ancon to Balboa Commissary;

resumption of the chest X-ray examination program for employees' families; the comparative cost of schooling in the Canal Zone, Alaska, Canada, Hawaii, and

Puerto Rico, and a question as to how

this is supported.

Attending the conference were: The

Governor, General Longfellow; E. A. Doolan, Personnel Director; Vernal Brown, of the Washington office, as an

observer, and Norman Johnson, Employee and Labor Relations Counselor; Elmer Powell, General Committee of Civic Councils; Marion Goodin, Gamboa;

Hugh Thomas, Gatun; Sam Roe, AnconBalboa-Diablo; Charles Hammond, Pedro

Miguel and John F. Rice, Cristobal- Margarita.
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW

First Reigning Monarch

Will Visit Canal Zone

When Britain's young Queen, Eliza- beth II, arrives here November 29 she

will probably be the first reigning monarch ever to set foot in an official capacity on the Canal Zone. Although Panama Canal files and old records bulge with accounts of actual or projected visits of princes and dukes,

former and future kings, presidents and

presidents-elect, there are no accounts of any time when a ruling king or queen

ever visited the Panama Canal. The only possible exception could be

the recent canal transit of Salote Tupou,

towering and personable Queen of Tonga,

a British protectorate in the southwest

Pacific. She transited the Canal last May, as a passenger aboard the S. S. Rangitoto en route to London to attend

the coronation of Elizabeth II. At the time Canal oldtimers could not

recall any previous occasion when the personal standard of a reigning monarch

was flown from the mast of a transiting

ship.

Father, Uncle Were Here

Elizabeth IPs two immediate predecessors on the British tin-one have visited the Canal, but neither after he became

king. The present Queen's uncle, Edward VIII, now Duke of Windsor, and

the Queen's father, the late George VI,

at separate times inspected lock control towers and saw the workings of the Canal. As Prince of Wales, the Duke of Windsor visited the Isthmus twice; his

first visit was from March 30 to April 1, 1920, and his second February 5 and 6, 1931. The first visit was official; he was

quite literally royally entertained. A contemporary newspaper even published the menu of a banquet given at the Hotel Tivoli by the British Minister,

Percy Bennett—it ' included corbina,

chicken, avocado—and on its front page commented especially that the Prince had danced repeatedly with Carolyn

Cranberry, daughter of a Panama Canal

employee; the writer conceded that she was pretty and a good dancer. The Prince and his party were travel- ing aboard the cruiser Renown. Its transit was delayed an hour while the Dredging Division dynamited a 50-ton boulder which had rolled onto the floor of the cut. The Renown passed safely over the debris, but gashed its propeller

badly.

On his next visit, 11 years later, the

Prince made Isthmian history, when he

flew from France Field to Paitilla airport

in a PAA plane, the first royalty to fly across the Isthmus. This visit was unofficial, because of a death in the royal

family; the Prince traveled as the Earl

of Chester, one of his lesser titles, aboard

the S. S. Oropesa.

How's The Baby?

Then Duke and Duchess of York, the present Queen's parents, were here January 25 and 26, 1927. This time no huge

rock impeded passage of the Renown

which was piloted as it had been seven

years earlier by Capt. Ralph Osborn. From a crowrd at Pedro Miguel locks, a homesick Briton called to the Duchess:

"How's the baby?" and she leaned over

the cruiser's rail to answer: "Baby's

fine." The baby, of course, was the pres- ent Queen, then only nine months old who

had been left at home in her palace

nursery. There was a luncheon for them at Panama's Presidencia and a dinner at the

British Legation was followed by a reception for 800 guests; the Star &

Herald devoted nearly four columns to

listing their names. On March 3, 1947, three other members

of the British Royal family were visitors here. They were the Duchess of Gloucester, the present Queen's aunt, with her two small sons, then aged 2 and 5. The

Duchess was traveling to England from

Australia on the S. S. Rangitiki. In her stay of only a few hours, she

QUEEN ELIZABETH II will arrive November

29 aboard the S. S. Gothic from the West Indies.

THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF YORK, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, parents of'Queen Elizabeth II, visited the Canal Zone in January 1927. Gov. M. L. Walker was with them when

they transited the Canal on the cruiser Renown; among other things he showed them was the control tower at Gatun locks.

drove around the Pacific side, both in Panama and the Canal Zone, lunched at

the British Legation and reviewed at

least two military guards of honor, one

of them at Pedro Miguel locks where she reboarded her ship.

Danish Royalty

Other royalty who have visited the Canal were the present King and Queen

of Denmark, then Crown Prince and

Princess, who were passengers aboard the MS Canada on March 27, 1939. Although

they were traveling unofficially, they were welcomed with a 21-gun salute and

were greeted by local dignitaries. Four months later the Crown Prince's 19-yearold brother, Prince Georg transited the Canal, also on the Canada. His visit was

considered informal and no official functions were held. Other royal visitors whose names

appear in Canal files include Archduke

Otto of Austria-Hungary and his brother,

who were here in April 1950; Prince Ferdinand of Lichtenstein and his Princess, visitors to the Canal Zone in April

1951; former King Leopold of Belgium

and his wife, who were here on a yacht

about 18 months ago; and Prince Wilhelm, brother of the King of Sweden, on

an unofficial trip last March.

Presidential Visits Three Chief Executives of the United

States, two presidents-elect, two vice presidents, and innumberable cabinet members, senators, and representatives

have visited the Canal Zone, officially and unofficially.

Of these the late President William

Howard Taft heads the list with the

largest number of visits. As Secretary

of War he made the first official visit to the Canal Zone in November 1904, only

six months after American forces began

work. Mrs. Taft was with him on his

first trip. They were house guests of the American Minister in Panama and were

entertained by officials of the then very young Republic of Panama.

For his second visit in November 1905, the train which brought him across the Isthmus, public buildings in the Canal

Zone, railroad stations along the line, and some buildings in Panama were gaily decorated. Mr. Taft made two other

visits as Secretary of War, in March

1907, and May 1908. In January and

February of 1909 he was here as Presi- dent-elect with a party of civil engineers,

and as President he made {See page m
THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

FOR YOUR INTEREST AND

£3H£

GUIDANCE

it

IN ACCIDENT PREVENTION ]£

Safety Equipment And Devices

(HOW TO GET THE EMPLOYEE TO USE THEM)

In the good old days of 1940, the Panama

Canal had disabling injuries resulting in a high average frequency rate of around

90. It was easier then to reduce it from

90 to 15 in 1952, than it will be to reduce

it proportionately in the future. One

reason for this is the "old math" problem

of arithmetical progression. If you were

to walk one half the distance to Gamboa

the first day, then one half the remaining

distance the second day, and so on,

theoretically you would never arrive, for there would always be one half the remaining distance left. This analogy somewhat fits the situation

in which the Canal Zone GovernmentPanama Canal Company now finds itself. It is difficult now to see any great progress in the reduction of the average frequency rate. In 1940 the mere establishing of a full-time safety program, where there was none before, produced

notable results. Now greater effort will be necessary to accomplish only one-tenth

the results. Another reason for the substantial reduction in the number of accidents then was the establishment, from time to

time, of better management responsibility and participation in safety, and

enforcement of safety rules and regulations. Now supervisory interest in safety

is good in all bureaus and divisions. Of course, there are some supervisors

who think they have been relieved of all safety responsibility with the appointHONOR ROLL

Bureau Award For BEST RECORD

SEPTEMBER

COMMUNITY SERVICES BUREAU

INDUSTRIAL BUREAU

AWARDS THIS CALENDAR YEAR

Industrial 6

Civil Affairs 3 Health 3 Community Services 2 Engineering and Construction 2 Marine

Railroad and Terminals

Supply and Service

Division Award For NO DISABLING INJURIES

SEPTEMBER

CLUBHOUSE DIVISION

ELECTRICAL DIVISION

GROUNDS MAINTENANCE DIVISION

DIVISION OF SANITATION

AWARDS THIS CALENDAR YEAR

Sani ta tion 8 Electrical 6 Motor Transportation 6 Dredging 5 Grounds Maintenance 5 Hospitalization and Clinics 4 Railroad 4 Clubhouses 3 Maintenance 3 Storehouses 3 Navigation 1 Commissary

Locks

Terminals

ment of safety representatives and

inspectors. Selling safety will still be

a job with these people.

During the past years most of the more

evident unsafe conditions and practices

have been removed or improved. However, if the average frequency rate is to be lowered, everybody will have to do

his part, especially the employee at the bottom.

What is the most important thing a worker can do to help lower the frequency

rate? The answer is simple. All he has

to do is look out for his own safety.

This means the observing of such things

as safety rules and regulations, using

machine guards, grounding electrical

tools, and wearing protective clothing.

Of all these, the wearing of protective

clothing appears to be the most difficult for him. Usually, the common laborer will wear some sort of shoes, shirt, hat, and

grab a piece of paper to protect himself from the rain. The difficulty is to per- suade him to wear the safety kind, a metal

hat to protect his head, goggles to protect

his eyes, gloves to protect his hands,

safety shoes to protect his feet. Below

are some ideas on the solution of the problem to get the workers' support.

Management can set an example by:

1. Observing all safety rules, regulations, and signs of the area in which

they happen to be working.

2. Wearing the safety equipment

and apparel required of the worker

while in his work area.

3. Correcting an unsafe procedure

or inefficient process rather than

ordering the worker to wear protective equipment against a hazard

which could be eliminated by proper

engineering.

4. Promptly removing an unsafe

piece of equipment, where repair or replacement is indicated.

5. Installing safety guards on machinery which has not been properly

guarded.

6. Acknowledging the sincerity and

good intentions of the worker who

makes complaints and suggestions

for improving working conditions.

7. Getting the worker to realize that his safety is as much a part of his job as knowing how to do it. 8. Giving each worker the best in personal supervision, with instructions to both new and old employees

in safety and job efficiency.

9. Holding frequent staff confer- ences in which backing is given to their safety engineer or inspector.

Safety Personnel can participate by:

1. Promoting group education,

posting safety posters, showing films and other visual aids, giving credit where merited, sponsoring workers'

safety meetings conducted by the

workers themselves.

2. Creating enthusiasm and interest in safety through working directly with the workers and listening to their complaints and suggestions.

3. Building the safety program for and to fit the worker rather than for the safety personnel.

4. Using a more interesting ap- proach other than the usual fright

picture of injuries a worker could

receive.

5. Showing him how to prevent

accidents with greater awareness and

safety consciousness.

6. Getting the worker to use safety devices and protective clothing for his own sake rather than trying to enforce obedience

7. Working directly with all supervisors and foremen; helping them to teach safe and efficient procedure to their workers.

8. Making sure you have the best

possible solution for their immediate

problem.

9. Realizing that the paramount

need is for safety and supervisory

personnel to understand the worker

and be able to work with him.

10. Setting a good example in

safety; being patient; taking time to prevail upon, induce and persuade

everyone to work safely and prevent

accidents.

SEPTEMBER 1953

Community Services Bureau

Industrial Bureau

Engineering and Construction Bureau

Civil Affairs Bureau

C. Z. Govt.—Panama Canal Co. (This Month)

Marine Bureau

Supply and Service Bureau

Health Bureau

C. Z. Govt.—Panama Canal Co. (Best Year)

Railroad and Terminals Bureau

Number of Disabling Injuries 19

Disabling Injuries per 1,000,000 Man-Hours Worked

(Frequency Rate)

l 1 10 EO 30 40 a

1

'

1 tssffla

i mm 4 m

6 §PfP 1

8

i"fi*' A-'r.V'vIv^ 8 TM^ I

9 11;; !;:vl

11

13

IS %$&m%$

» ' 20 30 40 50

Man-Hours Worked 2.469,911 LEGEND

Amount Better Than Canal Zone Government—Panama Canal Company Best Year

Amount Worse Than Canal Zone Government—Panama Canal Company Best Year

Accumulative Frequency Rate This Year
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW

Many Significant Finds First Presented

At Meetings Of Zone Medical Association

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first part of a two-part story on the Medical

Association of the Isthmian Canal

Zone, whose membership has included some of the most distinguished medical men of the Western Hemisphere.

Organized in 1906, when the Canal

Zone was a much more isolated spot

than it is today and when tropical

medicine was in its infancy, it served

as a clearing house where its members

could discuss their mutual medical

problems and give one another a sometimes much-needed boost along paths

which were just being explored.

Dr. D. F. Reeder, charter member of the oldest Canal Zone professional organization, chuckles over the part he played

in one of the many significant finds first presented to the medical world at meetings of the Medical Association of the Isthmian Canal Zone. Recognition of his bit role in the local discovery came at one of the regular

meetings held soon after the Association was formed sometime in 1906. Histoplasmosis Discovery

Dr. Samuel T. Darling, first official Chief of the Board of Health Laboratory

at Ancon—now Gorgas—Hospital, was

the speaker for the evening. His subject was histoplasmosis, unknown to the medical world until he discovered it. His first description of the frequently

fatal disease, caused by a fungus that attacks the lungs, heart, and other

internal organs, was given to local colleagues at that meeting.

After reading the paper that has served

since that time as the first source of infor- mation on the subject, Dr. Darling

thanked Dr. Reeder for sending him the

first undiagnosed case. Dr. Reeder, at that time barely past

his internship at the hospital, says his

failure to provide a diagnosis was not looked upon with similar favor by

supervisory physicians.

But his parents taught him to be an

honest boy, he says, and since he didn't know it, he wouldn't call it. Charter Members

Dr. Reeder resigned as Chief of Ancon

Hospital's Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat

Clinic in 1916 to join with other physicians in the formation of Panama Hospital where he is still in active practice.

He was President of the Medical Association in 1914. Dr. Harry Eno, the one other remaining

local charter member, began his intern- ship at Ancon Hospital in October 1905 and remained in the Canal organization

as a phvsician until 1915. Since that time he has been in private practice in Colon, and for several years headed the Samaritan Hospital there. Both of the local charter members are

living archives of medical history on the Isthmus, site of many significant medical

achievements, particularly in the field of public health and the study of tropical medicine. Many pioneering medical works first were made known at meetings of the

local association and published in its proceedings, later to be used in other professional journals and explained to

scientific gatherings elsewhere. Requests for papers in the Proceedings,

which still are being received, have often

CHARTER MEMBER of the oldest professional

society in the Canal Zone, Dr. D. F. Reeder is shown here perusing an early volume of the Proceedings of the Medical Association of the Isthmian Canal Zone in the Library of Gorgas Memorial

Laboratory in Panama City. Papers published in the Proceedings, after pre- sentation to Association members at regular meetings, contain many valuable additions to the advancement

of medical knowledge, particularly in the field of public health and the study of tropica! medicine. The one other charter member of the Association on the Isthmus is Dr. Harrv Eno of Colon.

outrun the supply. The one complete set on the Isthmus is the personal property of Dr. Herbert C. Clark, Director of Gorgas

Memorial Laboratory in Panama City,

who keeps them in the library there. The Proceedings were published from

1908 to 1920, when the publication was

discontinued as a Canal economy measure, but papers presented at monthly

meetings continued to be collected up

to 1935. Medical Milestones

Several medical milestones in the study

of trypanosomiasis, for instance, can be found in the Proceedings and minutes of Isthmian Medical Association meetings.

Trypanosomiasis is caused by organ- isms called trypanosomes which inhabit

the blood and tissues of man and animals. One member of the trypanosome family

causes the sleeping sickness of Africa. Another causes Chagas' disease of Central and South America, an illness that is often fatai and one on which Isthmian

doctors have done notable research. Trypanosomiasis of domestic stock, caused by another trypanosome, was

first recognized on the Isthmus in 1909 by

Dr. Darling, who described the disease as

it occurred in a large lot of mules sent from New Orleans for Canal work.

Dr. Darling, described by Dr. Clark as the outstanding scientific man of the old days at Ancon Laboratory, was a pathologist for the Canal and served from

1909 to 1915 as Chief of the Board of Health Laboratory.

During that period, he reported in the Proceedings of the local association and

other medical journals on 28 different subjects. The Wasserman test for syphilis, at that time very recently developed, was

first given wide application by his laboratoi iti 19 iz and his work on malaria and

equine trypanosomiasis were of great practical importance, according to Dr. Clark. Dr. Darling was President of the Isth- mian Medical Association in 1908 and

held the same post in the American

Society of Tropical Med- (See page IS)

REGULAR PLEASURE-AFTER-BUSINESS features of otherwise serious monthly meetings

devoted to professional matters are food and drink, being sampled here by three members of the Medical

Association of the Isthmian Canal Zone. They are, left to right, Capt. Shirley E. Gage, M. C, surgeon at Fort Clayton Hospital, one of the

three feminine members of the Association; Dr. Carl M. Johnson, Health Officer for the Canal in the Panama City Health Office, President of the Association; and Dr. I. J. Strumpf, Chief of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Service at Gorgas Hospital, Vice President. The other two women in the Association are Dr. Grace M. Stuart, Chief of the Anaesthesiology

Section at Gorgas Hospital; and Dr. Lidia Sogandares, Obstetrician and Gynecologist in Panama City

attached to the staff of Santo Tomas Hospital.
/

THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

Canal Says Regretful Farewell

To Oldest Local Rate Workers

l'i il'R of the oldtimers who are being retired from the Canal service meet on the front steps of the Administration Building where they haw all worked since 1914. Left to right they are: Prince Wolcott, Robert Atherley, Chesterfield Mayers, and Aubrey Todd.

The Canal is saying a regretful farewell

to a group of its oldest and most fail hful workers. They are the remnants of the small army of over 45,000 men who were

recruited and brought to the Isthmus

under contract to help build the Panama

Canal. Within the next few months all but a few will be mustered out of service. Most of the offices and field units will be affected by the program of retirement

for all local-rate employees over the age

of 65. This program was begun in August

and is scheduled to be completed by next March. The first group was retired in September and 87 more left the service at the end of October. When the program was begun there were approximately 475 in service above

65 years of age. Of these about 100 had

passed the 70-year mark and there were

a few who were SO years old or older. Gradual Program

When this program is completed it is planned to begin a more gradual retire- ment program for the men and women in the age group of 62 to 65. There are now

about 500 of this age group in service. The retirement of these will be "permissive" and those in good health who have

special ability may be retained in service

at the option of their supervisors.

The retirement of the employees in the

older age group was not instituted until after the recess of Congress because of favorable indications that the legislation to increase disability relief payments

would be passed. The legislation is a Canal administration measure and Governor Seybold has announced that he will vigorously urge its speedy passage when

Congress reconvenes in January.

It is regarded as a temporary measure

and the Canal administration is asking

the enactment of retirement legislation for its non-U. S. citizen workers. This measure provides for compulsory retire- ment at the age of 62 years and if this is passed, the group of 500 employees above

62 years would be automatically retired upon its passage.

All of those being retired during the current program will benefit under any

legislation raising the cash relief payments. Majority From Barbados

Most of those being retired now over

65 years of age are from Barbados since the great majority of workers who were

brought to the Isthmus during the construction period under contract and

retained in service were from there. The Canal Record in August 1914,

published statistics on the number of contract laborers brought to the Isthmus

during the Canal construction period. It showed that a total of 45, 107 were brought

under contract to help on the Canal

project.

Of this number 19,900 were employed

in Barbados. Other large groups were:

Spain, 8,298; Martinique, 5,542; Guadeloupe, 2,053; Italy, 1,941; Colombia,

1,493; Trinidad, 1,427; Greece, 1,101;

St. Kitts-Nevis, 942; and Cuba, 500. Most of the European laborers were

repatriated or left the service for construction projects elsewhere in Latin

America at the close of the Canal construction period. Many thousands of those from the West Indies also were

repatriated. In addition to the 45,000 who were

brought under contract for work on the Canal, thousands of others came to the Isthmus at their own expense to get jobs.

Notable among this group were men and women from Jamaica.

Legal restrictions in some of the

British West Indies required the contract recruitment program to be centered mostly in Barbados and the French

islands. There are no statistics available now on

the number still in service who were

brought to the Isthmus under contract.

It is notable that the first and last group of contract laborers brought to the Isthmus during the construction period were from Barbados. A total of 404

were employed in 1904 during the first year of construction, and 528 were employed in 1913, the year before the Canal was completed.

Four From Building

Typical of the employees over 65 years

of age who are now being retired are the four whose pictures are published on this page. All four are from Barbados and came to the Isthmus during the early construction period. These are, inci- dentally, the only four who began work

in the Administration Building when it was opened in 1914 and have been continuously employed there since. Two of these oldtimers, Chesterfield Mayers and Prince H. Walcott, both

Janitor Foremen, were retired at the end

of September. The other two, Aubrey

E. Todd, Office Helper in the Administrative Branch, and Robert J. Atherley, Station Messenger on the third floor, retired at the end of October. Another oldtimer at the Administration

Building who retired at the end of last month was Josiah Douglas, Messenger on

the "Governor's Station" for the past 35 years. He is from Jamaica and came

to the Isthmus in 1909. Most of those over 65 who are now

being retired have 40 or more years of service with the Canal organization. A

few boast of 45 or even 50 years of service, since some were employed by the Panama

Railroad or with the French Canal Company when the United States began the Canal work on May 4, 1904. The loss of these oldtimers will be

sorely felt in the units where they have

spent such a great part of their lives. They go with a fond but regretful

"adios" from their associates in the Canal

enterprise.

Third Annual Firemen's Ball

Will Take Place November 7

Final arrangements are being completed for the Canal Zone Firemen's

Third Annual Ball, to be given tomorrow

evening. Like the past balls, it will take

place at El Panama.

This year's ball is dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the Republic of Panama. Officials from Panama and the Canal Zone have been invited. Tickets will be available at the door for those who have not already purchased

them. A taxi service, at 25 cents a person, will operate between the Civil Affairs Building parking lot and the hotel. The drawing for door prizes, at 10

p. m., will be followed half an hour later by a floor show.

Sgt. Edward E. Albin is Chairman of

this year's Ball Committee. Other members are: Firemen Kenneth R. Coleman,

Fred A. Mohl, and John R. Olsen.
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW

.jg.-i.MfcJ.

Official Panama Canal Company Publication

Published Monthly at BALBOA HEIGHTS, CANAL ZONE

Printed by the Printing Plant Mount Hope, Canal Zone

John S. Seybold, Governor-President H. 0. Paxson, Lieutenant Governor

E. C. Lombard, Executive Secretary

J. Rufus Hardy, Editor

Eleanor H. McIlhenny

Editorial Assistant

SUBSCRIPTIONS—$1.00 a year

SINGLE COPIES—5 cents each On sale at all Panama Canal Clubhouses,

Commissaries, and Hotels for 10 days after publication date.

SINGLE COPIES BY MAIL-lOcentseach

BACK COPIES— 10 cents each On sale when available, from the Vault

Clerk, Third Floor, Administration Building, Balboa Heights.

Postal money orders should be made payable to the Treasurer, Panama Canal Company, and mailed to Editor, The Panama

Canal Review, Balboa Heights, C. Z.

Zone Days Were Happiest,

Writes Retired Employee

"When I receive a long official envelope

from the Governor's Office, I am always

hoping that it is a summons to come back

to work, but I guess it is too late to hope

for that any more," a retired Canal

employee wrote recently.

The writer was Edwin A. Hovey, now

of North Anson, Me. Mr. Hovey retired from the Dredging Division in 1938 after almost 21 years service with the Dredging

and Marine Divisions. He said he had answered the questionnaire sent to a number of retired employees by Booz, Allen and Hamilton, consultants engaged in a compensation study,

and added:

"I am very glad to do this as I fully realize that action that Congress takes on

this report will not only affect you folks that are now employed on the Zone, but us

retired personnel as well. "As you know we were granted a temporary raise in annuity about a year ago and

this report to Congress will decide whether

or not the raise will be made permanent or perhaps take it away from us. In which

event we of the retired list are going to find

it very difficult to maintain the standard of

living that we have been used to, as our annuity dollar will only buy 52 cents worth

• >f living today.

"I did not by any means state so in my

il 'Stionnaire, but the happiest and best

l.i .of my wife and myself were spent on

the Canal Zone and we have never been

really satisfied and contented since we left there as it always seemed like our home. "When I receive a long official envelope from the Governor's Office, I am always

hoping that it is a summons to come back

to work, but I guess it is too late to hope for that any more. "Should there be any of my old associates

left on the Canal Zone, I would like to

• xpress my best wishes to them. "Very respectfully, Edwin A. Hovey."

OF CURRENT INTEREST

They Sponsor The ROTC

WEARING uniforms in their school colors, the sponsors of the two high school ROTC units line up

for The Review camera. In the blue and gold of Cristobal are, upper row, left to right: Mercedes Peterson, Mary Louise Allen, Barbara Hickey, and Kathryn Dignam. Balboa's red and white is worn by, lower row, left to right: Alice Paxson, Ann Mulligan, Josie DiBella, ,.i d Constance Glassburn. Miss

Allen and Miss Mulligan are battalion sponsors; the others sponsor companies.

The period between late December and

early April is expected to be the biggest

tourist season for the Canal Zone and Pan- ama since 19.?°, according to figures compiled by the Railroad Division. Late last month, 33 reservations had been made for special trains to handle trans- Isthmian tourist trips between l>ecember

24 and April 3. The train trips will be

broken, either north or southbound, to permit the tourists to transit a portion of the Canal through the Cut. The itinerary

for passengers from each ship is laid out by its tour agent. On four dates there will be tourist trains run for two ships. These will be December

29 when the Patricia and the Flandre will both be in port; February 8, for the Mauretania and the Italia (formerly the Kungsholm); February 16, for the Nieuw Amster- dam and the lie de France; and February 29,

for the Empress of Scotland and the Ocean Monarch. The Patricia will make five trips to the Isthmus; and the Slella Polaris, Nieuw

Amsterdam, Mauretania, and Empress of Scot/and are scheduled for three each.

old Cristobal coaling plant which was

demolished some time ago. another 2,400 ton.-, »a» put aboard the

S. S. Hwasun. This was scrap assembled by the Storehouse Division from various Canal units.

Friday night is a better night to shop,

according to residents of Cocoli. This

fact was discovered recently through

a poll taken among the housewives of the West Bank community.

The majority of the voters favored Friday rather than Thursday as the

most convenient shopping night. As a result the Commissary Division has announced a change in the business

hours of its retail store there. Effective tonight the Cocoli commissary will be open Friday from 1 to 8 p. m.,

instead of on Thursday evening.

The annual visiting day for parents

of students in the Canal Zone schools

will be a feature of American Education

Week, to be observed this year between

November 8-14, in both colored and

white schools. Parents of secondary school students

will visit their children's schools on

Thursday, November 12; visiting day

in the elementary schools will be

Friday, November 13. There will be no visiting day at the

Paraiso schools, as parents in that town had an opportunity to see their children in class sessions at the time

the school was dedicated. A date for visiting day in the new South Margarita school is uncertain, at this writing,

and may be deferred until the formal

dedication of the building.

Colon Hospital has a new doctor. He

is Dr. Leo M. Rettinger, formerly District Director of Public Health in Saipan,

Mariana Islands, who arrived here during October and is now on the medical staff of the Colon Hospital.

Saipan gave Dr. Rettinger a good idea

of the climate of Panama and also a great deal of experience in dealing with tropical

diseases. He was stationed there from

July 1951 to 1953 and during that time was

head of the medical activities of the Saipan

district and in charge of the Saipan Hospital

administering to both the Civil Service personnel and the native population. Born in New York City, Dr. Rettinger was graduated from City College of New

York and took his medical degree from the Chicago Medical School. He was an intern

in the Methodist Hospital in Gary, Ind. and later entered private practice in Houston, Tex. During the war he served with the Army Medical Corps and was

stationed in England, France, Belgium,

and Germany.

The largest shipments of scrap to leave Canal Zone ports in well over a year were

loaded aboard ships at Canal docks during

last month. In two shipments a total ol 5,600 tons were loaded here for Japan.

The larger of the two loads was 3,200

tons, put aboard the S. S. Alcyone Hope.

The bulk of this shipment came from the

Capt. John Andrews, Jr., new Port Captain for Cristobal, arrived last week

from New Orleans to assume his duties

here. He replaced Capt. William S. Parsons, who has been assigned to Captain Andrews' former post as Director of Naval Reserves and Director

of Training on the Staff of the Commandant of the 8th Naval District.
THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

GREAT TREES cast their shade over Building GO which almost everyone calls the Central Labor Office. The Local-Rate Records Branch is also housed there.

Most Canal Zone Workers Have Business

Sooner Or Later At Balboa's Building 69

Municipal Engineering Division and went

to work at 24 cents an hour. A couple of years later he had trouble with his wife and came to the Central Labor Office with his problems. He was

given some commonsense advice which

helped patch things up for a while. Then

his wife had trouble with Juan. She

complained to the CLO that he was not

giving her enough commissary books to provide for her and the children, who, by

then, numbered nine. Juan was called in and talked to and a schedule set up which

required him to give a certain percentage

of his wages to his family.

Eventually his domestic difficulties adjusted themselves. He continued as a

laborer, was given a succession of salary

increases until he eventually was earning 55 cents an hour. His Service Ends

Recently he became ill and a physical

check disclosed a heart condition. His

case went before the Disability Relief Board which recommended—and the Governor approved—that he be put on

disability relief. Meantime the Local-Rate Records

Branch had been searching out his former

service in their 7,000 volumes of old payroll records, some of them written in copper-plate and yellowed with age. The

check verified his claim that he had six years of previous service. That, with his 14 years of continuous service, established the disability pension he would draw.

Searching out old service is usually not

as easy as it was in the case of Juan del Pueblo. Until 1929 there were no central complete personnel records kept for local- rate workers. CLO people estimate that

a thorough check for an old employee

would take one CLO employee about 10 working days; as it is, the search is divided among a number of people.

Conducted Tour

A walk through the first floor of Building 69 gives a fair idea of what goes on there; the second floor is filing space and the conference rooms.

Charles E. Barter, who has been with

the Personnel Bureau since 1938, is at the Roosevelt Avenue door. He serves as

receptionist, takes all incoming telephone

calls and routes visitors and callers to the proper desks. The west front corner of the building

is occupied by the Disability Relief Section where its head, C. A. Schecker, and

his assistants, Mrs. Barbara H. Matthews

and Goldbourne M. Jackman, are handy

to the old people whose service is ending.

At present they are in the middle of a program begun in mid-August which will retire 477 local-rate employees—over the age of 65—within a five-month period.

The east front of the building is occupied by A. L. Wright, Local-Rate Records

Chief, and his staff. Mr. Wright, a

bachelor, has "green fingers" and is responsible for Building 69's verdant

appearance. He started the vines which now cover it from two sprigs from the old Baptist parsonage and begged, borrowed,

and even stole from friends and acquaint- ances the plants which fill the pots

hanging from the building's eaves. A Georgian, he worked in Guatemala

and Costa Rica for United Fruit and in

Sooner or later -and it's usually sooner—everyone who works in the Canal Zone has some business at Building 69 on banyan-bordered Roosevelt Avenue

in Balboa.

Built in 1939 to house the Designing

Engineer's force (Third Lock studies and

special defense projects), it is now headquarters of the Personnel Bureau's Local- Rate Employment and Records Branches;

it is generally known as the Cen .a! Labor Office. Training conferences are held in rooms on its second floor. Early in his employment processing every new employee of the Canal organization and potential local-rate employees

of any Government agency in the Canal Zone visit the vine-covered two-story

frame building where the music of practising school bands mingles with the roar of airplanes and the shuttling of railroad engines. All new U. S.-rate employees of the Canal are photographed and fingerprinted at Building 69. In most cases U. S.-rate employees of other agencies are fingerprinted at their own personnel

offices but photographed at Building 69 where records of their employment are

filed. There are now some 100,000 of these "control cards" for past and present

employees on file. The process is somewhat different for the local-rate employee. He does not

apply for work at any government agency

until he has an eligibility card from the CLO—a card given him after he satisfies qualifications as to age, physical condition, citizenship status, and police record. Only then is he free to seek work, whereever it may be, in the Canal Zone. For the Canal Zone local-rate employee,

Building 69 serves as an employment and

termination office, a place where his records are kept, a complaints bureau,

and a court of domestic relations. One Man's Record

Take an imaginary local-rate employee, Juan del Pueblo. This is what his ex- perience might have been: He had once worked for the Canal but

had resigned and taken up farming in the

Interior. In December 1939, when there were more jobs than people to fill the

jobs, Juan del Pueblo decided to go back

to work in the Canal Zone. He applied to the Central Labor Office which had been established that month

"to centralize the induction and control

of labor employed and seeking employment with The Panama Canal and other government agencies on the Isthmus of Panama," as an official report of that day

phrases it. At that time the CLO was

in the old police station, opposite the Balboa elementary school. He presented his cedula showing that he was a Panamanian citizen and was

given a physical examination. A check

showed a clear police record. A bi-lin- gual interviewer talked with him and

classified him as a laborer. He was given an eligibility card to seek work, with a number which later became his I. C. number.

Meantime a file was set up on him, one

of the 750,000 or so in the local-rate records files. This contained information on his birth date, marital status, the number of his dependents, his previous

employment record, and a letter of recom- mendation he happened to have from a former boss. He was then 45 years old. Juan deljPueblo found a job with the

KENNETH F. BROWN, 76, is Building Oil's oldest employee. Hecamefrom Jamaica in I906and

has been with Personnel since 1917.
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW

PANAMA LINE SKIPPERS

Capt, CHARLES L. FOLEY, S. S. Panama

''/'it/ */ilV>

Capt. WILLIAM J. STEFFENS, S. S. Ancon Capt, F. DeF. GORMAN, S. S. Cristobal

THE APPOINTMENT of Capt, Charles L. Foley, left, as skipper of the Panama Line's S. S. Panama last month completed a turnover of Panama Line masters which began in July a year ago. Captain Foley has been with the Panama Line since 1947 and has served aboard both the Ancon and Cristobal, in addition to his present command. He

succeeds Capt. J. W. Kirchner, who has retired. Captain Steffens, center, has been in command of the Ancon for the past

15 months, ever since the retirement of Capt. David Swinson. A graduate of the New York State Nautical School, he has been in the employ of the Panama

Line since 1926. Captain Gorman became skipper of the Cristobal last March when the ship's former master, Capt, Erik J. Eriksen, was appointed Panama Line agent in

Haiti. Captain Gorman, like Captain Steffens, is a graduate of the New Y'ork State Nautical School; he has been with the Panama Line since 1936.

Cristobal for Pan American Airways

before he joined the Personnel Bureau

in 1931. Home-Made Lift He is especially proud of a home-made

"dumbwaiter," which links Building 69's two floors. Built at a cost of $11 it has

saved thousands of hours of labor time. This dumbwaiter, a contraption made

of a correspondence basket and a rope or two, hauls files to the second floor file room which is in charge of Mrs. Perpetua

B. Hackett; her assistants are Mrs.

Marjorie L. Neckar and Mrs. Hua W.

Rigby.

Behind Mr. Wright's desk is the mail

center, in direct charge of George V.

Daniels, where hundreds of pieces of correspondence are handled each week;

the correspondence desk, where Mrs. Lois Johnson works; the organization desk in charge of Mrs. Marguerite Maphis

assisted by Mrs. Jean J. Jacobson, where

position records are checked and service dates for quarters established; and the bank of control card files. Across the room is the identification section headed by Mrs. Leila J. Gibbs

assisted by Mrs. Helen P. Hunsicker,

where Adrian B. Howell, who has been

with Personnel for 11 years, laminates

identification cards and photo badges.

He seals them into their plastic covering

in an ingenious machine which puts them

under 15,000 pounds of pressure and

bakes them for five minutes. They are

later cut into the various shapes used

here and an eyelet, for handy pinning-on,

inserted. Old Payroll Section

The next section, where the volumes of old payrolls are kept, is the particular bailiwick of Kenneth F. Brown who came

to the Canal Zone from Jamaica in 1906

as a waiter and has been with Personnel

since 1917. Now 76 years old, he is due

to be retired next March. Also working

in this section are John Henry, Fitz H.

Howell, Harold F. Gibbs, and Worden

V. Moore. The base, or back, of the L-shaped

building is headquarters of the Localrate Employment Branch of which

Charles H. Crawford is head. Born in South Carolina he still has traces of a Southern accent, although he lived in Chile for 13 years. He joined the Personnel Bureau in 1939 and from 1941 to 1945 spent a great part

of his time ranging from Salvador to Colombia, recruiting contract workers

during the war-boom years. Because he is nearest Building 69's back door and because it's his job, Mr.

Crawford draws some rather peculiar

visitors from time to time. More than

once he has discovered that a caller has wandered away from an institution for the insane and not infrequently his visitors, with good-sized chips on their shoulders, have smelled strongly of marihuana.

Across the back of the building are the desks of interviewers like T. L. Edghill

and L. 0. Clarke, who talk to some 1,500

people every month. The file section,

which is the province of J. A. Eastmond

MRS. BARBARA MATTHEWS has been with

Personnel since 1936. She works in the Disability

Relief Section at Building 69.

and where violent domino games rage during the noon hour, is in the end of

this wing. W. A. Gaskin is in charge of the photographic section which, last year, took photographs of 13,969 people.

Cristobal Office building 69's Atlantic side counterpart

is Building 1029—the Cristobal Labor

Office. There Clarence H. Browne, whose

Canal service dates back to 1937, and

his one U. S.-rate and two local-rate employees perform all the duties done by

the Central Labor Office in Balboa and,

in addition, handle U. S.-rate employees

of the Canal organization.

At the end of last June, 28,238 men

and women were working in the Canal Zone for the Canal, Army, Navy, Air

Force, contractors and other government

agencies, 800 more than at the end of the previous fiscal year. Record cards on all of them were on file in Building 69. Heavy as this load is, Building 69 has

seen busier days. When the Central Labor Office and the Local-Rate Per- sonnel Records branches joined forces in Building 69 on New Year's Day, 1941,

employment in the Canal Zone was

almost triple last year's figure. Far Flung Recruiting

Workers had to be recruited and CLO

teams worked in Costa Rica, Salvador,

Colombia, and Jamaica, finding bellhops,

blacksmiths, brakemen, carpenters, chauffeurs, cooks, dock workers, gardeners,

mechanical helpers, bakers, butchers,

jackhammer operators, seamen, waiters

in short, men who could fill just about

any semi-skilled position. In these war

years over 22,000 contract workers were

brought to the Canal Zone and all but

four or five of them have long since been

repatriated.

With their varied activities, the people

who work at Building 69 have their hands

full right now. To be sure, there are far fewer of them than there were 10 years

ago, but they have no desire to go back

to the hectic days of 1941-45.
10 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

Your Town = Gattin

l lATUN'S TRIPLE FLIGHT of locks. ( were once hillti

xtending one and one-sixth miles, raises or lowers transiting ships 85 feet. ps dot the surface of the lake beyond the upper end of the locks.

Islands which

Anyone revisiting the Canal Zone

today, after an absence of 40 years, would

have considerable trouble orienting himself in the town of Gatun. Its topography

has been more changed and the town

itself has undergone more metamorphoses

than almost any other section of the Canal Zone. The name El Gatun, for village and

river, appears on maps of Panama's

colonial days. It may be derived from

"gato," for cat, referring to the feline, smooth-running river; or it may come

from "gatunero" or sailer of smuggled

meat, since Gatun was known as a plac • where stolen cattle were brought for sale to travellers. Sir Henry Morgan and his men

bivouacked close to Gatun, near what is now known as Navy Island, after sacking

the old city of Panama nearly 300 years

ago.During colonial times and until the beginning of this century, Gatun was

located on the west bank of the Chagres,

about where the office and machine

buildings of Gatun Dam now stand. In the mid-1800's it was described as a sleepy village of 40 or 50 cane huts, on

the edge of a broad savannah. On a hill overlooking the river were ruins of an

old Spanish fort.

The gold rush of 1849 and the beginning of construction of the railroad a year later woke Gatun with a jolt. Travellers, on their way upriver from

Chagres, paid 25 cents each for eggs and

$2 a night for a hammock, exorbitant

prices for those days.

When work began on the railroad, ships

carried machinery, provisions, and part

of the railroad force up the Chagres to Gatun. From Gatun they worked their way back through the swamp toward the

railroad's Atlantic terminus on Manzanillo Island, now Cristobal-Colon. A month after the railroad ran its first work train, on October 1, 1851, as far as Gatun, a "norther" forced two passenger- jammed ships into Limon Bay. The

thousand California-bound gold hunters, unable to land at Chagres and start their journey up river from there, demanded

passage on the railroad. They paid 50

cents a mile and $3 per 100 pounds of baggage for the 7-mile train ride. As the railroad tracks stretched further toward the Pacific, Gatun became just a

railroad station and a river produce landing. Beside the tracks which ran on the

east bank of the Chagres were a large, two-story house, a cluster of smaller

buildings, and "suitable outbuildings"

around a flourishing garden.

L.LARGEN

i police station; TS are a Gatun man-and-wife team. Sergeant Largent is Mrs. Largent is the nurse in charge of the Gatun first aid

in charge of station.

But about 1880 the French Canal

Company forces reached Panama. Almost

overnight, thousands of prefabricated

buildings were unloaded from ship after

ship. Warehouses, quarters, and machine shops went up in Gatun and along

the railroad line. By 18S1 Gatun,

rechristened Cite de Lesseps, had become

the largest town in what is now the Canal Zone.

After the French virtually abandoned

work on the canal, Gatun lapsed into the

quiet of its pre-boom days. American

forces began work in 1904 but Congress

did not authorize a lock-tvpe canal

until 1906. French engineers and the first U. S. Isthmian Canal Commission had planned

to dam the Chagres at Bohio, about 17

miles from Colon. It was John" F.

Stevens, the Canal's second Chief Engineer, who advocated harnessing the Chagres at Gatun. "Why not make the Chagres the servant instead of the master of the

situation?" he asked. Engineers quarrelled with his selection

of Gatun as the dam and lock site and

declared that the rock foundation was

not suitable. Stevens held firm, and

declared: "If Nature had intended triple locks there she could not have arranged

matters better." But it was not until the then Secretary of War, William H.

Taft, brought a group of engineers to the Canal Zone —they pronounced the loca- tion satisfactory—that the furor died down and work could be started. Tent City

While the family and bachelor quarters

and labor barracks to house the lock and

dam forces were being built, the workers

and some of' their families were sheltered

in about 150 tents of varied shapes and

sizes which stood in more or less orderly rows alongside the railroad tracks. The

Labor and Quarters Department objected

roundly.

Jackson Smith, its head, predicted:

"On account of its being a tent city, the men will not remain there after their first pay day;" and his assistant, Lt. R. E. Wood, now Chairman of the Board of Sears, Roebuck, added: "Gatun is going

to be what Mount Hope and Comacho

have proven to be—a sinkhole for men." The town was built under difficulties.
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW 11

MISS RUTH CROZIER, Gatun School Principal

Before any houses could go up, a 16-foot plank road had to be laid from the rail- road tracks to the foot of a steep hill and

all material had to be carted over the road and up the hill. Despite the diffi- culties, 97 buildings had been erected by

June 1907 and work had started on a commissary in a hollow opposite the present police station.

Sibert's Hill A year later Lt. Col. William L. Sibert established the headquarters of the Atlantic Division at Gatun. The building was

on high land just north of the present

railroad station and close to the bridge over which Bolivar Highway now crosses the tracks. A metal hitching post to which Colonel Sibert tied his horse is still in place there, a metal plaque in its base. From the porch of the wind-swept office building, oldtimers recall, there was a

splendid view of Limon Bay and the harbors of Cristobal and Colon, the dredges at work in the approach channel, the locks under construction in the valley

below, and beyond them the dam which was beginning to take shape. For his residence, Colonel Sibert chose

a hilltop east of the village on the road

then being built from Gatun to Cristobal. Subsequent revampings of the town have

leveled it off. In the meantime rapid progress on the

locks and dam meant that the railroad,

which ran close beside the Chagres, had

to be relocated on spoil taken out years

before by the French. The river had

already been diverted. Moved To New Town

In April 190S, the old native village

and its 600 inhabitants were moved to

zM ^

MISS PEARLINE CARTER, Chagres School

Principal

"New Town," which was located just

about where the third locks excavation was dug over 30 years later. As it was

rebuilt, New Town had over 110 building's

including a church and its parsonage, and

about 25 stores. Gatun was beginning to assume the look of a town. The railroad was moved

from what is now the west side of the

locks to its present location; the present

station was begun in 1909. The same

year work was started on a new two-story

commissary at track level, north of the

railroad station with the entrance at the

bridge level. In 1909 a $25,000 club- house was built on a knoll next to the present dispensary.

There were schools, a two-story hotel

its front lawn bore the letters "Q. M. D."

(for Quartermaster Department) in foliage

plants—a post office and telephone

exchange near the present intersection of Bolivar Highway and San Lorenzo Street. There was a two-story lodge hall, which

also served as a church, opposite the present dispensary, and bachelor quarters, one of which was located where

Sibert Lodge now stands. The dispen- sary was on the location of the present

Gatun school. A row of big quarters—which housed

the families of such people as Maj.

Chester Harding, who was in charge of locks construction and was later the

Canal's second governor, William Gerig,

who headed the dam forces, and other

officials- stood opposite the location of the present clubhouse.

Stilson's Pond

Downhill, behind the present clubhouse was Stilson's Pond, at one time the reser- voir for Gatun. It was named for Joseph H. Stilson, a "down Easter" from

Maine; his father, Charles, had come to Panama in 1863 to work for the Panama

Railroad. During the dry seasons, he and his family lived in a big house, built by the French Canal Company near the old vil- lage, about where the center chambers

of the locks are now. Miss Louise

Stilson of Colon, and two of her brothers,

William and Joseph H. Stilson, Jr., until recently ticket agent for the Panama

Line, were born in Gatun. Mr. Stilson,

Sr., was in the hardware and lumber

business in Colon. When work began on the dam, the

Stilsons moved to another large house,

later destroyed by fire, on a high point of land near the present railroad. Stilson's Pond, on old pasture land, came into being when Gatun Lake was formed. When the Third Locks excavation was

going on about 1940, the pond was filled with its spoil. A few of old-time Gatun 's street names

have survived all of the town's changes.

There are still Lighthouse and School- house Roads, for instance. Telephone

Road, also known as Skunk Hollow, is now San Lorenzo Street; Front Street is Bolivar Highway; Santa Rita Place was

once known as Hogan's Alley or Incu- bator Row.

Fun and Games

Life was simple in early Gatun, but

people had fun. There was a woman's

club, with Mrs. Chester Harding as its 1908 president. The men could belong

to such organizations as the Inca Tribe of the Improved Order of Red Men which

gave a ball and banquet on Thanksgiving

Eve, 1907, with children in Indian cos- tume attending. The Gatun Dancing

E. L. ROADES, Gatun Commissary Manager

Club met regularly, and occasionally a touring company like the Edith Harris- Scott Company gave performances at the clubhouse. Men with outdoor bents, like Charles

E. Thomas, played baseball on a diamond

between the end of the lock wall and the present station, in an area long since under water. Or they could hunt tigers

and red mountain lions across the Chagres as Charles H. Bath, now of Margarita,

did frequently. On hot Sundays it was

possible to borrow an engine and railroad car to ride to the beach at Chagres.

By March 1913, the population of Gatun was 8,887. Nine months later it had dropped to 5,943. The dam and

spillway were finished, the locks were

operating, and only clean-up work

remained. An official estimate of that

time gave the future population of Gatun

as 160 American employees and their

families. Housing Replaced

Except for the introduction of Army

troops into Gatun during World War I and some talk a few years later of abandoning the whole town, nothing much

happened to Gatun until 1928, when new

quarters were built for 164 local-rate

families. In 1932, plans to replace most

of Gatun 's old housing were approved

and grading for the $1,250,000 project

began January 31, 1934. Buildings came down right and left. Even the old police station was demolished. Its officers set up temporary headquarters in a small frame cottage but transferred their prisoners to the sturdier jail at Cristobal. Hardly had the new town been finished when Gatun went through another of its recurrent upheavals. The Third Locks

LT. DAVID B. MARSHALL, Fire Station Commander
12 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

project which had been under consideration to ince about 1930

finally becami ' On August 11,

9, Congress authorized the immediate

construction of the third locks.

[gland Between Locks

latun this meant the building of a new triple ilk tiamber L,200 feet

ide. They were to lie

lee;.' Hi half a mile east of the

original flight, (latun was to become an

i n the two sets of locks and

was m for some of the greatest. boom days

of its up-and-down history. An official

of the force to be required set

a (leak of over 9,000 workers by 1943.

In January 1941, the contracting firm

of Wunderlich & Okes signed a contract

for the ( latun excavation. Construction men in ived in. In the bottom of the

third locks cut, now a great, gaping hole, giant shovels dumped their loads into dozens of trucks which raced about on the right-hand side of the imaginary highways below, and then, when they reached

the tup, switched over to the left-hand

drive and sedate speed limits of those

days. From an observation platform,

which still stands at the end of High

Street, anyone could watch the ordered

turmoil below. A few months after Pearl Harbor,

Samuel Rosoff of New York, won the $45,705,000 contract to build the new

Gatun Locks. Wunderlich & Okes completed their contract in May 1943, but

the Rosoff contract was canceled. Shipping had been diverted to the war areas, cement and steel were all but unobtainable and there was military difference of opinion on the strategic value of the

third locks. War Days

With the war, the physical appearance

of Gatun changed. Solid 26-foot fences

of corrugated metal surrounded the lock

area. Barrage balloons were anchored

overhead. Buildings or part of buildings

which might be fire hazards and, burning,

light the vital locks target, were torn down. Air raid shelters were built and

air raid drills held. Like all other Canal

towns, lights were out by 11 p. m., there were no street lights, and cars drove with

blacked-out headlights. As the war receded into the Pacific and

danger to the Isthmus abated, Gatun - and the rest of the Canal Zone—went

back to its normal way of life. On March 31, 1944, just 35 years after

its first clubhouse was built, Gatun's

present clubhouse was inaugurated formally. It was called the "newest and most

complete of any in the clubhouse system."

About 40 Zonians who had lived in Gatun in 1910 were invited to the dedication. Some of them—Lawrence Adler,

Roy Dwelle, Reed E. Hopkins, Sr., and

Charles E. Thomas—are still on the Isthmus. Gatun Today

Today Gatun is a town of about 2,160

people. Its U. S.-rate commissary and

clubhouse and post office are under one

roof. The local-rate commissary and

clubhouse are also combined, physically.

There are two churches in Gatun proper,

several in the local-rate section of towm

which is generally known as Chagres.

Gatun has an active Little Theater group and its residents think that it has more

hobbyists than any area of like size. The

grind of the power saw is a familiar sound. Camera enthusiasts, shell, coin, and

stamp collectors, dog fanciers, and icthyMRS. EVA REED, Gatun Clubhouse Manager

( JLIFFORD GREEN, Chagres Commissary Manager

111

» I III ! 1

MARTIN S. SAWYER, Postmaster

ologists abound. Several well-known

local artists have lived there or still do. One Gatun woman is the author of a book

of children's fairy tales. Fishermen come from near and far to

its Tarpon Club, beside the Gatun spill- way where there is some of the best fish- ing in the world. Its town barbecues are famous. They are good, old-fashioned

affairs where the men dig a deep pit, and

work all night turning a beef or a pig over red-hot coals to the proper degree

of rich, brown crispness.

There are often community picnics or dinners at the Block House, another

(latun institution, and its active Civic Council always arranges festivities for Christmas, Hallowe'en, and Fourth of July. The Christmas decorations which

are an annual feature on the locks have

inspired the townspeople to similar, if

less elaborate, efforts and a drive through

Gatun during the holiday season is well worthwhile.

Carl Nix, who works at the Gatun

Hydroelectric plant, is president of the Gatun Civic Council. Although he is a

transplanted Pacific sider, he now considers Gatun the best place in the Canal

Zone.

"It's the friendliest town on the Isthmus," he says. "It doesn't make

any difference whether you've been there ten days or ten years. You're part of Gatun." Ten Years Ago

In October

5 Selective Service was about to reach its long arm to the Canal Zone for the first time in World War II. Late in October came the official announcement that all U. S. male citizens abroad, including the Canal Zone, would

be required to register for the draft, pro- vided thev were between the ages of 18 and 44." Prior to this time Zonians registered

when they went to the United States on

leave; no local machinery had been set up

to handle local registrations.

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox

visited the Canal Zone briefly for the third time since he had been appointed to the Cabinet post. He ivas on his amy back to Washington after a quick inspection of U. S. Naval Forces in Europe and the Mediterranean area.

In Washington, after a long legal battle, the Court of Claims awarded to Louis

Townsley, retired master of the dredge Las Cruces, over $5,000 in back overtime

pay. The award covered the period from

March 1914 to August 1939. Seventy-one similar suits were pending

for men whose employment had been

similar to Mr. Townsley's.

From Balboa Heights came word that

the application of the Court's decision was under study.

OSMOND N. DUVERNEY, Chagres Clubhouse Manager

Less than four weeks after the National

War Fund drive opened in the Canal Zone,

its $80,000 goal was over-subscribed. The

drive provided funds for 17 agencies, one

of them the United Services Organizations.

National War Fund Sunday was observed;

Girl Scouts helped the drive through

calendar sales.
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW 13

Many Significant Finds First Presented

At Meetings Of Zone Medical Association

(Continued fram pageo) icine in the year

1924-1925. He was killed in an auto- mobile accident in 1925. Animal Reservoirs

Several years after Dr. Darling's dis- covery of trypanosomiasis in horses and

mules, Dr. Clark and Dr. L. H. Dunn

demonstrated that cattle, hogs, sheep,

and goats also are infected with the same

trypanosome although they act only as a

reservoir for the parasite.

Although considerable experimental

work was done on the Isthmus and else- where the methods of transmission of try- panosomiasis of horses and mules re- mained a mystery until 1932 when Dr. Clark and other scientists at Gorgas

Memorial Laboratory discovered that the vampire bat is the carrier. The sole diet of vampire bats is blood

and, although they have been known to

bite human beings on very rare occasions,

they ordinarily live on the blood of animals. They pick up the trypanosomes of dis- eased cattle in the process of feeding,

which they do by clipping the hair from

a small area, biting the clipped, bared

skin, and lapping up the oozing blood much as a cat drinks milk. In about half such cases the bat dies from the trypanosome infection within

a month but before he dies, may spread

the disease to other animals on which he

feeds. In the remaining cases the bat

lives but may become a chronic carrier. Mouse-Like Bats

Local vampire bats, Dr. Clark says, are not the huge creatures they are painted

in horror stories. Both in size and color they look very much like a mouse. The

maximum wing spread is about 12 inches. In the rare cases known to him in which bats have bitten people in this area the bites were not serious and there were no ill effects. The trypanosomiasis

of horses and mules cannot be transmitted

to man. The contribution of Dr. Clark to the study of trypanosomiasis is only one of many achievements which have won for him world wide recognition and many

top medical honors in the field of tropical medicine. He has been in charge of Gorgas

Memorial Laboratory since it was established in 1929. He first came to the Isthmus in 1909 as a pathologist on the

first permanent staff of the Board of Health Laboratory and remained there

until 1922 except for two years in France

during World War I. He was in the medical department of United Fruit Company from 1922 to 1929. He was President of the Medical Association of the Isthmian Canal Zone in 1917 and was President of the American

Society of Tropical Medicine for the year 1936-1937. A new pathogenic form of trypanosomiasis was reported in Panama in 1940 by

Dr. Carl M. Johnson, at that time Assist- ant Director and Protozoologist at Gorgas Memorial Laboratory.

He is now Health Officer in Panama

City for the Canal Health Bureau, and

President of the Medical Association.

Significant chapters also have been

written by members of the Association in the history of the study of Chagas' dis- ease, caused by another trypanosome

that commonly invades the heart muscles

TURKEYS for Thanksgiving are as traditional as the last Thursday in November. Today's

tender turkeys, though, are a far cry —or would it be a gobble? from the rangy birds which our Pilgrim forefathers shot out of the

trees near Plymouth. To meet the Canal Zone demand for the Thanksgiving table, the Commissary Division

will be receiving next week 21 ,000 pounds of tender toms and young hen turkeys. They

will range from seven to 26 pounds and will be either the dressed birds or the eviscerated

variety which require almost no work lo ready them for the oven. More torkeys will be along before Christmas time.

Stuffing goes with turkey just as applesauce

goes with pork. Again this year Prepared the commissaries will have the

Stuffing famous Pepperidge Farms stuffing, at about 33 cents for an 8-ounce

bag, enough to stuff a 10-12 pound bird. CRANBERRIES, from Atlantic coast cran- berry bogs, will be coming along, either

fresh or in canned sauce, to go with the main

dish. Other fresh produce which the commissaries will provide includes lettuce and celery, big Idaho baking potatoes or juicy golden

sweet potatoes,- rosy apples, California or Florida oranges and clusters of grapes.

For a Thanksgiving menu, the commissary

people venture to suggest Suggestions something like this, every item For available in the retail stores: Thanksgiving Oyster or shrimp cocktail, made from the fresh oysters or frozen shrimp tails,- onion soup, from the

Lipton's Soup Mix which is new in the gro- cery sections,- roast turkey with Pepperidge

Farm stuffing; sweet or while potatoes, creamed onions,- a salad of your choosing,- and, for dessert, pumpkin pie, either pur- chased from the Bakery counter or made from the ready-prepared pumpkin pie mix,- or Mrs. Mason's Rum and Brandy Fruit Cake,

about 65 cents for a one-pound box or $1.35

for a two-pound tin, in the grocery sections, or individual ice-cream molds, available on

order in the shape of a roast turkey, at 14

cents each. TEENAGERS are never filled up, so mothers might do well to stock up for be- tween meals nibbling, on some of the English

biscuit sweet cookies to us Americans

which are again in the grocery sections. Both Huntley & Palmer and Peak Frean

assortments are available at prices from about 70 to 95 cents, depending on size. The gaily decorated tins in which they are packed are handy for a number of uses, once the biscuits are gone.

For turkey roasting, the commissaries are

stocked with six covered aluminum

Roasters roasters, oblong, oval or round, And ranging from $2.15 to $7.50 in Skewers price. The biggest will accom- modate a 16-22-pound bird. A

round, three-quart pyrex roaster, at about

$1.30 and a medium sized enamel roasler, at about $2.45, are also on hand. A card of skewers, one long and three

short, "for the well-dressed turkey" it says, and to fasten up the places where the stuffing went in, is available in hardware sections at 12 cents a card. CARVING SETS, to use at Thanksgiving

and all the year round, are also available in the hardware sections. Three pieces, they range in price up to $22.95. The top price

is for an especially handsome set with silver handles. Hardwood nut or snack bowls, 6,

9, and 1 3 inches in diameter sell for 60 cents

to $2.75. Filled with fruit and nuts, the big bowl would make a handsome centerpiece. Due soon in the hardware sections are Westinghouse roaster ovens. Helps Finished with two coats of For baked-on enamel they have a Housewives glass look-in" panel on top and are fine for a Thanksgiving

turkey, a big roast or a whole meal, $41.50.

A Sunbeam automatic cooker and deep

fryer, at $28.50, eases preparation of any

meal,- and people who have used them for everything from cocktails to cakes are

lyrical over Waring Blendors. They sell for $34.75.

CANDLES enhance the beauty of any

dinner table. The commissaries have 10-inch

candles, in the shape of ears of corn, at 20

cents each; or a tree trunk candle, also 10

inches tall, for 79 cents. Short, fat candles, shaped and colored like a turkey gobbler,

are 10 cents each. Then there are sets of six wax candle holders, two turkeys, two pumpkins, and two pilgrim hats, each with its orange colored candle, at 72 cents a box. The ladies of the family, from the sub-teens

to grandmother, can find new

To Wear dresses for Thanksgiving and

To Dinner the holiday season coming into the stores now. Many of them are one of a kind. The collection features several with the new princesse lines. Many

are sequin-trimmed.

OUR PILGRIM FATHERS would probably have frowned on square dancing, but it's pretty sure that there will be square dances in the Canal Zone during the Thanksgiving weekend. The commissary shoe sections now

have square-dance boots for girls —they say

true square dancers "wouldn't be caught

dead without them" in medium widths,

sizes 3j to 9, in rust, oxblood, and burgundy.

An adjustment strap crosses the waffle- embossed quarter.

Speaking of shoes, the commissaries have a new safety shoe as handsome as To Wear any dress shoe, for the head of Any Time the family. A blucher oxford,

it has a new type plastic counter

in the heel, a woven vamp, and shoe people

say, though it can't be seen, a steel safety

toe. Selling for $8.65 it is available in C,

D, and E widths, sizes 6 to 11, in Cristobal and Balboa Commissaries. Men's baseball shoes, in sizes 6 to 12, at $6.50 a pair, are also on hand in Cristobal and Balboa commissaries. They are made by

the Hyde Athletic Shoe Company. And

Dad or his older sons should be interested

in another new number: a two-eyelet

Chukka, featured by many smart slores. Made of full-grain calf, it is smooth inside with the suede appearing skin on the out- side and features a cellular crepe sole. In a good-looking golden shade, it comes in sizes 5 to 12, in D width only, and is priced

al $7.50. It is available at Balboa, Cristobal,

Tivoli, La Boca, Camp Bierd, and Rainbow

City commissaries.

causing severe fever and pain and some

mental confusion. Dr. Johnson contracted a near-fatal case of the disease when he was studying it in 1950. Notable early work on Chagas' disease was done locally by Dr. Dunn, former

entomologist at the Board of Health

Laboratory.

Dr. Raymond Kelser, former associate member of the Association, devised, while he was on the Isthmus, a serological test for detecting the presence of the trypan- osome that causes Chagas' disease, a pro- cedure that is used widely throughout

Central and South America.

Dr. Kelser was the veterinary member

of the Army Medical Research Board

that was transferred from the Philippine Islands to the Canal Zone about 1935 and functioned on the Isthmus for about

six years. Following his retirement from the Army

as a Brigadier General, Dr. Kelser was Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

He was widely known for his work in veterinary bacteriology and author of a

well known text book on the subject.
'

14 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

PROMOTIONS AND TRANSFERS NOVEMBER SAILINGS

September 15 through October 15

Employe! ted or transferred b nbei I 5 and < li

ire 1 i below . Regradings ,uu\ within- grade pi omi il ions are not listed. ADMINISTRATIVE BRANCH

Mrs. Martha E. Richard, from Clerk

typist, Personnel Records Division, to \cu> Writer, Press Suction. CIVIL AFFAIRS BUREAU

Mrs. Minnie E. Brennan, from Kindergarten Assistant to Elementary School

teacher, Schools I liv ision. Mrs. Margaret M. Ward, from Substitute Teachei to High School Teacher,

Schools I Kvision. Mrs. Iris E. Wilson, from Substitute Teacher to Elementarj School Teacher, Schools 1 > i \ ision. Henry B. DeVoll, from Guard, Locks

Division, to Postal Clerk, Posfal, Customs, and Immigration Division. James L. Collins, Jr., from Guard,

Locks Division, to Policeman, Police

I >i\ ision.

- Harriet K. Serger, from Elementary

School leacher to Substitute Teacher,

Schools I >i\ ision. COMMUNITY SERVICES BUREAU

John W. Hare, from Realt\ Assistant to Land Inspei tor, Office of Director. Sidney Temple, from Clerk-Typist

to Housing Management Aid, Housing

I )i\ ision. Paul T. Roth, from General Supply

Clerk to Housing Management Aid, Housing

I Hvision.OFFICE OF COMPTROLLER

Ralph K. Skinner, from Accountant, General Accounts Branch, to Voucher Examining Supervisor, Claims Branch. Mrs. Grace E. MacVittie, from Clerk,

Industrial Division, to Clerk-Stenographer,

Claim Brani h. Mrs. Ruth K. Peterson, Clerk-Stenographer, from Claims Branch to Comptroller's Office. Jack A. Muller, from Electrical Engineer, Electrical Division, to Valuation

Engineer, Plant Inventory o\»\ Appraisal

Staff. Daniel J. Slater, from Construction

Cost Analysl to Engineer (Estimates) Plant Inventory and Appraisal Staff. Mrs. Alice H. Roche, from Accounting

Clerk, Agents Accounts Branch, to Voucher

Examiner, Claims Branch. ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION

BUREAU

Thomas S. McKibbon, from Superv isorj ("oust ruction Inspector, Contract and

Inspection Division, to Electrical Engineer,

Engineering 1 livision. Hubert A. Rotenberry, from Painter.

Industrial Division, to Painter Leader. Maintenance I Hvision. Chester R. Boltz, from Wireman to Distribution Foreman, Electrical Division. Walter R. Malone, from General Fore- man, Excavators and Tractors, to Chiel Operator, Floating Crane, Dredging Division. Charles S. Joyner, from Ferrj Ramp

Operator, Ferry Service, to (in. ml SuperI >redging I >i\ ision. George K. Reichel, from Steam Engineer, Floating Crane, to Engineer, Pipeline Suction Dredge, Dredging Division. John R. Hammond, Jr., from Mechanical Engineer to Supervisory Mechanical

Engineer, Engineering Division. Lee R. Beil, from Chief, Diesel Generation Station, to Chief, Hydro Generation

Statii hi. Elei i rical I >iv ision. Ralph H. Graham, from Power Dis- patcher to Chief, Diesel < lenerating Sen

Electrical 1 livision. Mrs. Mildred II. Morrill, from ClerkTypist, Locks Division, to Clerk-Stenogi aphei , Elei 1 1 ii al I >iv ision. Ralph L. Sell, from Planing Mill Hand,

Industrial Division, to Carpenter Leader, ntenance 1 >iv ision. Kenneth K. Marcy, from Planing Mill Industrial Division, to Quarters

Maintenance Leader, Maintenance I >i\ ision. Starford 1.. Churchill, Jr., from

Apprentice Machinist to Machinist, Dredging I )iv ision. James F. Ahearn, from Construction

Inspector, Contract and Inspection Division, to Plumber, Maintenance Division. Gerald A. Doyle, Jr., from Construction

Inspector, Contract and Inspection Division, to Architect. Engineering Division. HEALTH BUREAU

Ralph A. Sylvestre, from Hospital Administrative Assistant to Hospital Administrat i\ e I Hticer. Mrs. Helen S. Rovics, from General

Storekeeper to Property and Supply Clerk,

( iorgas I lospital. Louis L. Seldon, Electrician, from Aids

lo Navigation Section to Gorgas Hospital. Mrs. Martha L. Lerchen, from Clerk,

Industrial Division, to Clerk-Typist, Gorgas

I lospital. MARINE BUREAU

Charles 0- Peters, Jr., from Ferry

Ramp Operator, Ferry Service, to Assistant Foreman, Atlantic Locks. Ollen P. Strickland, from Shipjoiner to Planing Mill Hand, Industrial Division. Everett White, from Ferry Ramp

Operator, Ferry Service, to Guard, Locks

I livision. Gilbert F. Lee, from Guard Supervisor,

Industrial Division, to Guard, Locks

I livision. J. Ernest Tigert, from Guard to Guard

Supervisor, Industrial Division. Herbert K. Peterson, from Planner and

Estimator to Chief, Planning Section,

Industrial Division. Hubert D. Clayton, Jr.; George E. White; Robin L. Erixon, from Probationary Pilot to Qualified Pilot. Navigation

I )|\ ision. James E. Lovelady, from Policeman,

Police Division, to Guard, Locks Division. John M. Stuart, Christian J. Gundersen, from Pilot-in-Training to Probationary

Pilot, Navigation Division. Lawrence W. Jenkins, from Guard to Guard Supervisor, Locks Division. Linvvood R. Moist, Sr., from Guard

Supervisor to Assistant Chief, Locks

Security Branch. Paul D. Barnard, from Lock Operator Leader Wireman to Lockmaster, Pacific Locks. Joseph T. Cope, from Lock Operator

Wireman to Lock Operator Wireman

Leader, Pacific Locks. Mrs. Gertrude M. Roberts, Clerk

-

Typist, from Division ol Storehouses to Locks I livision. Archie W. French, from Combination

Welder, Maintenance Division, to Lock

Operator Welder, Pacific Locks. John W. Forrest, from Machinist to Machinist Leader. Industrial Division. Edwin C. Mcllvaine, from Freight

Traffic Clerk, Terminals Division, to Fiscal Accounting Clerk, Industrial Division. PERSONNEL BUREAU

Nancy C. Fuller, Clerk-Typist, from Gorgas Hospital to Personnel Records

I livision. RAILROAD AND TERMINALS BUREAU

Mrs. Ethel J. Roof, from Mail and File Clerk, Terminals Division, to Clerk-Typist,

Railroad I >iv ision. James W. Grey, from Supervisory

Storekeeper to Supervisory Traffic Clerk, Terminals I >iv ision. Joseph A. Corrigan, from Supervisory

Traffic Clerk to Supervisory Freight Traffic

( Ifficei . I erminals 1 liv ision. Henry G. Apfel, from Utility Operator,

Maintenance I >iv ision, to danger and Crib- lender Foreman, Terminals Division. SUPPLY AND SERVICE BUREAU

Herbert F. Taake, from Electrician to Plant Electrician, Commissary Division. Desmond S. Doig, from Storekeeper

(Shipping) io Storekeeper (Receiving),

Commissar) I >iv ision. Robert G. Richardson, from Store- keeper (Shipping) to Foreman (Shipping),

Commissai j

I livisii m. James J. Reccia, from Storekeeper

(Receiving) to Storekeeper (Shipping),

Commissary I livision.

From Cristobal Cristobal November 6 Ancon] November 14 Panama^ November 21

Cristobal November 27 From New York

.4 neon

* November 5 I'amima-. . .November 10

Cristobal November 17 Anion November 24

tLeaves Cristobal Saturday. Arrives New York

Friday. Leaves New York Thursday because of holiday. (Northbound the ships are in Haiti from 7 a. m. to noon Sunday; southbound the Haiti stop is Saturday, from 7 a. m. to 4 p. m.)

OCTOBER RETIREMENTS

Retirement certificates were presented

the end of October to the following employees who are listed alphabetically, together with their birth places, titles, length of service, and future addresses. Julius O. Barnes, West Virginia; Chief,

Payroll Branch; 28 years, 4 months, 15 days;

Ridgeley, W. Va. Albert W. Harber, New York; Ferry

Ramp Operator, Balboa; 15 years and 10 davs; address uncertain. Robert Harvey, Virginia; Wood and

Steel Carman, Railroad and Terminals

Bureau; 16 years, 7 months, 7 days;

Tigard, Oreg. Earl W. Hoverter, Pennsylvania; Shipping Foreman and Storekeeper, Commissary

Division; ,?0 years, 1 day; Gardners, Pa. Merrill Patten, Maine, Administrative

Assistant, Engineering Division; 17 years, 9 months, 29 days; Canal Zone.

ANNIVERSARIES

Employees who observed important anniversaries during the month of October are

listed alphabetically below. The number of years includes all Government service, with

the Canal or other agencies. Those with continuous service with the Canal are indicated with (*).45 YEARS

Lancen L. Phillips, Chauffeur, Motor

Transportation (Governor's car). 30 YEARS

William F. Bartholomew, Senior Chief Engineer, Craneboat Alias, Dredging

I livision. Robert H. Hicks, Voucher Examiner,

Claims Division. *Earl W. Hoverter, Foreman, Shipping

and Storekeeper, Commissary Division. Leroy B. Magnuson, Budget Analyst,

Management Staff. Henry E. May, Superintendent, Store- houses Division. Bernard W. Mclntyre, Locomotive

Engineer, Railroad Division. *Carl R. Newhard, General Foreman,

Telephones (Northern District), Communications Branch. R. Andres Rios, Dispensary Aide,

Gorgas Hospital.

25 YEARS

'Edmund T. Bleakley, Foreman, Pipe

Line Suction Dredge, Dredging Division. Lewis R. Cox, Guard Supervisor, Dredging I liv ision. *Ruth C. Crozier, Principal, Gat tin School. *Walter H. Hebert, Admeasurer,

Balboa, Navigation Division. *Dorothy C. Kern, Teacher, Cristobal Elementary School. Rufus M. Lovelady, Position Classifier, Personnel Bureau. Victor L. Sanger, Tractor-Bulldozer

Operator, Maintenance Division. *Edith H. Stoll, Clerk-Stenographer,

Commissary Division. *Adrian W. Webb, Lock Operator.

Leader, Pacific Locks.

20 YEARS

Preston G. Gau, Supervisor, Tabulating

Machine. Operations, Comptroller's Office. Thelma R. Godwin, Teacher, Cristobal
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW 15

FIRST COROZAL QUARTERS TO BE OCCUPIED NEXT WEEK

LAYOUT (if the Corozal housing area is shown in this aerial photograph. The houses at tr upper left will be occupied next week

(Continued from page t) new town at Corozal embodies a new concept in town

planning for civilian communities. The

accompanying aerial photograph taken

late last month shows the unusual arrangement in street layout.

The area is encircled by a broad street, one side of which parallels Gaillard High- way. The principal residential areas are served by circular or dead-end streets to eliminate dangerous intersections.

Variety Of House Types

The new town is also unique in the types of buildings. It has the greatest

variety in types of houses of any of the

large quarters construction projects ini- tiated under the long-range quarters

replacement program. They include both masonry and composite houses. Forty of the buildings are duplex quarters and of

these, 14 are one-story houses. Of special interest to employees are the new two-story masonry duplex buildings.

These are new types containing three and

four bedrooms to an apartment on the second floor. Both types are of the same

general floor plan with the bedrooms

located on the second floor and the ground

Elementary School. Joseph P. Hawthorne, Lock Operator,

Atlantic Locks. Frank H. Lerchen, Maintenance Engineer, Maintenance Division. Roy W. Perkins, Assistant Foreman,

Marine Bunkering, Terminals Division. Frank J. Stewart, Heavy Truck Driver,

Special, Motor Transportation Division. Semon Theriot, Lock Operator, Atlantic Locks.

15 YEARS

Emily E. Butcher, Music Supervisor, Colored Schools. *John R. Campbell, Chief Towboat

Engineer, Dredging Division. Edward J. Friedrich, Planner and

Estimator, Industrial Division. *William S. McK.ee, Lock Operator,

Pacific Locks. Fred R. Middleton, Control Investigator, Control Branch. Ruby Easter Radel, Nurse, Gorgas

Hospital. G. C. Rodriguez, Guard, Atlantic Locks. Ervin A. Rolli, Guard, Atlantic Locks. Harmon Smith, Wireman, Electrical Division. Elmer E. Stern, Senior Carpenter, Aids

to Navigation Section. Robert J. Straus, Lock Operator,

Pacific Locks. Fred R. Trout, Electric Welder, Industrial Division. Bennett J. Williams, Time, Leave, and

Payroll Clerk, Payroll Branch.

THIRTV-THKKE of th

at Corozal wil

two-family, three bedroom houses like this one

be built at Diablo Heights this year

floor being devoted to living space with

carports for each apartment at the front

of the building.

The first of these buildings, the four- bedroom apartments, were completed on Empire Street in Balboa this year. The

first of the three-bedroom apartment

buildings were assigned in the first group

at Corozal. There are 19 of the three- bedroom duplexes being built there and

seven of the four-bedroom duplexes.

Many Two-Story Duplexes

Because of the large number of the Type 336 buildings (three-bedroom apartments) being built at Corozal and to be

built in the 1954 program, a picture of a

recently completed building of this type

is shown above. Floor plans of the four-bedroom apartments, Type 339, were published in the January 1953 issue

of The Canal Review.

In addition to the 33 buildings of this type at Diablo Heights which are to be

built this fiscal year, a large number of Type 336 and Type 339 houses will be

built in Balboa ' Flats. A total of 98

family units are planned for construction

there this fiscal year. Invitations for bids for the quarters

construction in Balboa and for the nine houses to be built at Gatun are to be

advertised next month.

La Boca, Camp Bierd Start

Saturday Morning Matinees

Saturday morning matinee performances were inaugurated last week by the Clubhouse Division at the La Boca

theater. Similar matinees will begin tomorrow at the Camp Bierd theater. Show time is 10 a. m. The matinees were requested by the Rainbow City Civic Council which felt that there should be daytime entertain- ment for children since some of them are not permitted to go out at night without

adult escort. The Saturday morning programs will be designed to appeal especially to the

juvenile audiences. The feature pictures

for the first three Saturdays, in order of showing, are: "Hawk of Wild River,"

Beauty Doth Varnish Age

The venerable Hotel Washington is having its face lilted—In fact it is hoped

that the painters can put a little sparkle in the old girl. Not that she isn't a handsome

old lady, but for some time she has lacked

that "come-hither-look" which is standard among all the younger and more modern

inns.Painters, under the direction of J. S. Christopher of the Maintenance Division, went to work in the hotel during October and the work of repainting all the public rooms and corridors has been progressing

rapidly. The private rooms and suites are being painted as they become empty.

The floor of the ballroom is being refinished and the beautiful ceilings of the hotel are being touched up. Work should be compjeted early in November.

"Roaring Frontier," and "Terror Trail." In addition, there will be chapters from

the exciting serial, "Captain Video."
16 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

THE CANAL ZONE twice welcomed the then Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII and now Duke

of Windsor. This photograph was taken at the Balboa Heights Administration Building in 1931. In the

foreground, left to right are: Prince George; the Prince of Wales; Capt. Clark Woodward, then Marine

Superintendent; and ('apt. Maurenus Peterson, who was then in charge of the Balboa Police district.

First Reigning Monarch Will Visit Canal Zone

[Continued from page S) two official

visits, in November 1910 and December

1912. Old Porch Is Best

Just before he arrived in 1912, Col. George Goethals sent the President a

messagt , asking him to stay at the Goethals house in Culebra. "Culebra is

cooler, offers better protection, greater

privacy, more quiet, is more centrally

located, and the old porch is still the best

place on the Isthmus," he wrote. President Theodore Roosevelt made

only one visit to the Canal Zone, in November 1906, but he was the first president to leave the United States

while in office. The Hotel Tivoli was

rushed to completion for his visit and

elaborate plans were made for his enter- tainment, but these were cut down by the President who said he wanted to see the work on the Canal and confer with the men in charge.

The Canal Zone was so little prepared

at that time for an official visit that the 21-gun salute on his arrival was given

with guns and ammunition borrowed

from Panama. He spent most of his

visit touring the length of the canal, in the pouring rain, and left much-encouraged workers behind when he returned

to the United States.

F. D. R. Was Last The last U. S. Presidential visit to the

l Zone was that of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1940. It was his fourth as President. The war in Europe had begun and this presidential

visit, unlike the three which had pre- ceded it, was a whirlwind one, devoted to an inspection of the Canal's defenses. President Roosevelt arrived aboard

miser Tuscaloosa, left the ship at Gatun Locks, and made a swift drive through the Atlantic side military posts

before he boarded a special train for Clayton where he lunched at the

Officers' Club before he rejoined the Tuscaloosa at Miraflores Locks. The

Tuscaloosa put out to sea, but returned

nine days later. This time the President drove around the Pacific side, and took Panama's President back aboard the

cruiser for the Canal transit. At Gatun

a single file of soldiers lined the west and

center walls of the entire length of the

three steps of the locks, as a guard of honor. On his three previous visits, July 11, 1934, October 16, 1935, and August 5, 1938, President Roosevelt had traveled aboard the cruiser Houston.

Many Oldtimers Expected

To Come For Dedication

Of Goethals Monument

Indications that a large number of

retired employees plan to visit the Canal Zone early next year for the dedication of the Goethals Memorial have already been

seen at Balboa Heights.

Details of the program and the date on which the dedication will take place should be completed soon; they will be announced in the next issue of The

Panama Canal Review.

A special reduced round-trip minimum

rate on the Panama Line of $120, plus

15 percent U. S. tax—with an additional charge for deluxe accomodations- -will be granted to retired employees and their wives who worked on the construction of the Panama Canal betw?en 1907 and

1917. The reduced rate will be applicable on one southbound sailing only. Return

passage must be taken not later than two

sailings after arrival in the Canal Zone. Oldtimers interested in making the

trip should write the Panama Line, 24

State Street, New York City, or the Administrative Branch, Balboa Heights,

Canal Zone.

The greatest depth of excavation by

the French on the Canal axis at Culebra was 161 feet.

OUR OUT-OF-DOORS

A bowl of oranges and apples, bananas

and grapes, with shelled nuts spilling over

the side is traditional in many homes as a cmterpiece for a Thanksgiving dinner

table. This year why not try an arrangement

made from native fruits and vegetables?

One of the bateas native wooden trays

makes an ideal container. The fruit can be arranged on a base of multi-colored Tropical Almond (Ternii- nalia catapa) leaves which seem to take on autumn hues especially for the occasion. Almost any fruit stand can supply an

assortment of fruits such as bananas,

oranges, pineapples, papayas, tomatoes,

etc. With a little more effort one can

secure malay apples, mangosteens, tropical almonds, bigmae, Governor's plums,

and many others. Palm nuts, which

grow in great clusters, are usually avail- able and add color for several days.

Additional color can come with the

addition of deep purple eggplant and red

or bright green peppers. The unopened

pear-shaped flowers of a bunch of bananas,

while not so easily come by, add interest

.

Have you noticed the blossoming Mayo

(Vochysia fenaginea) trees on the wooded

hillsides all over the Canal Zone?

Their panicles -- pyramidal, loosely

branched clusters of flusters— in showy,

rusty yellow are conspicuous against the background of green leaves and brown

trunks. The trees on which the flowers are borne are large and in North America are known only in Panama.

The unusual thing about them this year is that they are flowering in October

instead of May, as their local name- Mayo—implies.

CAUTION: Many people have inad- vertently used the Commissary insecticide containing chlordane on their plants with

drastic and dire results. The Commissary insecticide is prepared

with a light oil base and is highly effective

for the use for which it was prepared:

the control of such household pests as cockroaches, ants, silverfish, moths, spiders, etc. Its oil base, however; makes it unsuit- able for garden use.

If you want to use chlordane solution around your plants, to fend off leaf-cutting ants and other plant pests, be sure to have the water-soluble variety. This is available from the Grounds Maintenance

Division.

Hospiial Insurance Plans Are Being Pushed

(Continued from page l) the local-rate group will be sjlected after plans have

been more fully developed. The organi- zation of the hospital insurance association

is being done in cooperation with the Civic Councils now being formed in the various local-rate communities although

the two groups will be independent.

The authorization of payroll deductions

for the payment of hospital and medical

insurance for employees and their families was announced several weeks ago by the Canal administration. However, it was

stated at that time that this could be done only if some responsible employee

organization would act as intermediary

in handling the accounts.
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW 17

STATISTICS ON CANAL TRAFFIC

For the purpose of comparison between pre-war and post-war traffic through the Panama Canal, statistics for the fiscal year 1938 are used in this section, as being more nearly normal for peace time than those for 1939.

TRAFFIC AND TOLLS FOR FIRST QUARTER HIGHER

THAN FOR SIMILAR PERIOD OF LAST FISCAL YEAR

Traffic and tolls for commercial shipping were both up for the first quarter of the present fiscal year as compared to the

similar period last year. Commercial

transits for the quarter totaled 1,890, against 1,677 for the similar period last year; tolls for this year's first quarter were $8,186,000 compared to $7,267,000

for the first quarter of the last fiscal year. Several of the main trade routes

U. S. Intercoastal, U. S. East Coast to Central America, U. S. East Coast to the Far East, and Europe to the South

American West Coast—showed increases compared to the similar period last year. Four major trade routes—U. S. East

Coast to South America, U. S. East Coast to Australasia, Europe and the U. S. West Coast, and Europe to Australasia—showed drops in number.

North, South Total Same

The number of U. S. government vessels, both large and small, was higher

during the first quarter of the present

fiscal year than last year, and while there were more large commercial ships bound

from the Atlantic to the Pacific than in the opposite direction, the total number

of ships was exactly the same in each

direction. For the first quarter this year

1,347 ships were southbound and 1,347

northbound through the Canal—a coinci- dence seldom seen in shipping statistics. Mineral oils continued to hold the number one spot in the list of commodities shipped from Atlantic to Pacific, as they had done a year ago. Second place

this past quarter was occupied by iron and steel manufactures; a year ago this place was held by coal and coke shipments.

Third place in southbound commodities

this past quarter was held by phosphates,

which, last year, had been No. 9.

Ores, Lumber Change

In the first two spots on northbound

commodities, ores and lumber switched

places. This year ores occupied the first place; last year they had been in the number 2 spot. Lumber which had

headed the list last year dropped to sscond place this year. Banana shipments northbound dropped

this quarter, compared to last year, but

shipments of other fresh fruit were more

this year than last. By national registry, U. S.-flag vessels were again highest this year, with 536 U. S. ships transiting compared to 491 during the first quarter of last year. German, Japanese Increase

British shipping, although still in the number two spot, was down slightly from

last year—311 for the first quarter of the present year compared to 320 for the past year. Norwegian vessels, third again this year, were also off slightly,

dropping from 220 last year to 214 for the quarter just concluded.

Nationalities which showed increases in the number of transiting ships included: Chilean, Colombian, Danish, Ecuadorian, French, Greek, Italian, Liberian,

TRAFFIC MOVEMENT OVER MAIN TRADE ROUTES

The following table shows the number of transits of large commercial vessels (300

net tons or over) segregated into eight main trade routes:

First Quarter, Fiscal Year

1954 1953 1938

156 137 349

342 399 97

115 94 19

307 237 217

41 50 49

156 185 194

124 89 137

77 88 44

572 398 300

1,890 1,677 1,406

Principal commodities shipped through the Canal

(All figures in thousands of long tons)

Figures in parentheses in 1938 and 1953 columns indicate

relative positions in those years ATLANTIC TO PACIFIC

Commodity

Mineral oils Coal and coke Manufactures of iron and steel Phosphates--

Paper and paper products

Sugar

Sulphur

Soybeans and products

Cement

Machinery

Raw cotton Automobiles

Fertilizers, unclassified Wheat

Barley

All others Total

First Quarter, Fiscal Years

1954

1,262.844

922,164

425,326

175.104 102.950

99,247

93,189

82,204

75,543

66,211

62 .212 60,868

26,896

3.488

687 1,079,568

4,538.501

1953

1,163,425 (1) 516,854 (2) 274,890 (3) 55,353 (9) 49,057 (14)

1 (i4, 562 (4) 96,727 (5) 50,611 (12) 50,127 (13) 73,746 (6) 53,342 (11) 54.918 (10) 47.014 (15) 72,968 (7) 69,427 (8) 907,609

3,700,720

1938

178,635 (3) 47,077 (14) 646,493 (1) 111.416 (6) 132,018 (5) 3,207 (31) 83.729 (7) 900 (—)

50,559 (11) 46,081 (10) 23,877 (13) 62.666 (9) 8,641 (41) 343 (—

)

153 (—

)

1,593,214

2,989,009

PACIFIC TO ATLANTIC

Commodity

First Quarter, Fiscal Years

1954 1953 1938

1,186,261

771 ,330 723,665

438.4')') 336,936

160,547

154,824

148,730

115,142

70,009

66,805

45,781

63,435

27.504

27,262

559,552

664.636 (2) 729.116 (1) 469,586 (3) 352.484 (5) 354.023 (4) 245.783 (6) 200.373 (7) 178,182 (8)

172,682 (9) 58,554 (13) 54,840 (15) 93,237 (10) 66,006 (11) 56,310 (14) 58,675 (12) 592,520

541.685 (3) 877,574 (2) Wheat -- 40,873 (7) 439.129 (4) 306.650 (6) Nitrate _ ---- 222,756 (5) 173,726 (8) 8,670(29)

Refrigerated food products (ex- cept fresh fruit) - 45,205 (10) 37,173 (In) Fresh fruit (except bananas) 26,622 (9) 978,129 (1) 35,092 (IS) Iron and steel manufacturers 5.966 (—

)

52.039 (12)

All others - 861.813

Total _ _ 4,896,282 4,347,013 4,653,102

Dutch, and Swedish.

Two of the greatest increases were shown in German shipping, 84 this past

quarter compared to 24 last year, and

Japanese, 95 for the past quarter compared to 58 a year ago.
18

f

THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

Bulk Of Scandinavian Shipping Through Panama Canal

Is Represented By Veteran Canal Zone Shipping Agency

CAPT. CHARLES B. FENTON

some years, he came to the Canal Zone to attend to the vessels of the New Zealand

Shipping Company and those ships

owned by the P. & 0. Company. World

War I had been raging for two years; he

inherited the important task of hus- banding many of the transports carrying

New Zealand troops and more particularly, the hospital ships carrying sick and

wounded home from the Western Front. Zonians Helped

"It was more or less a labor of love,' Captain Fenton told The Review, "but

it must never be forgotten that I had the

selfless and generous support of the entire population of the Canal Zone. "The United States had not entered

the war up to that time, but there was

nothing to compare with the grand manner in which the Canal Zone people

let themselves go in the way of entertain- ment and care given to those New

Zealanders.

The bulk of Scandinavian shipping

which uses the Panama Canal is repre- sented by C. B. Fenton & Company, one

of the veteran Canal Zone shipping

agencies. Established here in 1916, the agency handles between 40 and 50 ships a month and claims several distinctions.

It represents the largest Danish ship- owner, A. P. Moller of Copenhagen; the

largest Swedish shipping firm, Messrs. Axel Brostom of Gothenburg; and the

largest Norwegian company, Messrs.

Wilh. Wilhelmsen of Oslo. In addition, Fenton & Company represents three state-owned lines, the Argentine State

Line, the Chilean Line, and Petroleos Mexicanos, which is owned by the Mexican Government.

The agency was the first on the Isthmus

to introduce Panama ports of call to its

principals. Together with Hilmer Lundbeck of the Swedish American Line, it arranged for the first Kungsholm, now the

Italia, to make a call at the San Bias

Islands about 16 years ago. This call at the home of the colorful

little people of Panama's Caribbean

coast proved to be a great tourist attraction; subsequently Mr. Lundbeck was

decorated by the Panama Government as appreciation for the innovation. Last year the Stella Polaris, small but

luxurious cruise ship of the Clipper Line

of Malmo, put into the historic port of Portobelo, the only cruise ship ever to

call there. Seafearing Head

Fenton & Company was organized by

ia still headed by Capt. Charles

r Fenton, who was born in New

Zealand and whose seafaring career

d when he was only 11 years old.

.: 21, he had been seven around the world under sail; in his seafaring life he has been almost to the North Pole and well below the Antarctic

circle. As a boy he had sailed, as a guest, aboard the missionary ship Southern Cross out of New Zealand' to the South Seas, and well remembers breakfasting with

PvObert Louis Stevenson at Guadalcanal. In 1916, by then a ship master for

HEADING the Fenton staff are: D. C. Langman,

left, in charge of passenger service; Gilbert Morland,

the agency's General Manager; and Colin Lawson,

in charge of boarding operations.

"The roads to the Locks in those days were quite indifferent and automobiles were scarce, but crowds collected at the Locks with much enthusiasm and passed on board all kinds of goods and produce.

I wonder how many of those kind and

generous people are still here. If they

should happen to read this, I should like them to know that New Zealand has never

forgotten their overwhelming kindness."

Early Transits

A number of the lines which Fenton &

Company now represent are closely linked with the early days of the Panama

Canal. Four months after the Canal was

opened, the Chilean Line began a regular

service from Valparaiso to Cristobal. A

Chilean Line ship, the Limari, made the

first night lockage of the Canal on December 16, 1914. Another long-time user of the Canal is the Blue Funnel Line—it is known more

formally as Alfred Holt & Co.—which

began regular service through the Canal

in 1915 between Great Britain and the

Pacific Northwest coast. The Wilhelmsen Line ships were using

the Canal as early as July 1915. One of

its vessels, the Torsdal, was on a regular

service from the west coast of South

America to Archangel in Russia. The run

took it from about 20 degrees south of the equator to well above the Arctic circle. Today, the ships represented by Fenton & Company operate through the Canal

on runs all over the globe; in one month

there may be such varied nationalities as Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Chilean,

Dutch, Mexican, Panamanian, German,

British, and Canadian vessels carrying such diverse cargoes as gasoline, Diesel

oil, automobiles, milk, coal, grain, paper,

chemicals, bananas, and sugar.

Casualties Of War

Many of the ships are comparatively new; their predecessors in the Canal

service were sunk during the last war. A Fenton ship, the Blue Funnel Line's

Cyclops, was the first ship to be sunk in American waters in World War II. Her

last port of call had been Cristobal. She went down off Halifax in January 1941,

with a loss of about 90 lives. Fenton & Company's experiences during

the war years were varied and some of them still cannot be told. One of the most dramatic of the tell- able tales concerns a ship which had a

HEADQUARTERS tor C. B. Fenton & Co. is its building on Roosevelt Avenue in Cristobal, near

the entrance to the piers
November 6, 1953 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW 19

KUNGSHOLM is a name well-known on the Canal Zone waterfront. This is an artist's conception

of the new Kungsholm which is due here early in February on her first visit to the Canal Zone. The

largest Swedish luxury liner and the largest ship ever built in Holland, she will make her maiden trans- Atlantic voyage to New York late this month. The new Kungsholm—her predecessor in name is now the Italia of the Home Lines—grosses 20,000

tons, is 600 feet overall, has nine decks, a passenger capacity of about S00, a movie theater and swimming

pools, and is air conditioned. Master of the new Kungsholm will be Capt. John Norlander, now skipper of the MS Stockholm.

Chinese crew. The crewmen had not been happy before they reached the Canal Zone and the final blow came when they were not permitted to go ashore here. They openly threatened not only to mutiny but also to kill all of their officers. Forty men from a Canadian-Scottish

regiment were flown to the Isthmus. When the well-armed soldiers boarded the

ship in Cristobal, trouble subsided and

the ship was able to go peacefully on

its way.

Representatives of the agency have

been called upon to furnish a favorite poem to be read at a funeral, or to patch

up a feud between women passengers,

or to provide live sheep and goats for a

crew's food, and to do a hundred and one

out-of-the-ordinary things. As representatives of the insurance

firms they represent, they have been in- volved in everything from accidents to murders.Bought Building In 1950 Fenton & Company's first offices were

in the Cristobal Masonic Temple. In 1950 the firm bought its present office, a

large building with Greek-pillared portico.

It had once been occupied by the German

firm of Hapag-Lloyd.

Part of the first floor space is leased to the National City Bank. The large apartment on the second floor is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Morland, their two

sons and four daughters. Mrs. Morland

is the daughter of the late Capt. W. W.

Woodhull, a Canal pilot. Mr. Morland who is general manager

of the company, came to the Isthmus 25

years ago from England where, like a number of other local shipping men, he had worked for the White Star Line. Commercial shipping interests at the Panama Canal are on call 24 hours a day.

He recalls the time when a member of

his boarding staff phoned him one Tues- day night and said, "If you are concerned

about the 40-hour week, I have just

completed mine." Mr. Morland is an ardent baseball fan, although some 24 years ago at Balboa he walked out of the first baseball game he

ever saw because he did not understand

what was going on. Eventually his

interest was so great that he became

President and General Manager of the

Cristobal team which broke all Isthmian

records by winning the pennant for six successive years. He is also a keen golfer

and is presently serving his second term

as President of the Brazos Brook Country

Club.

Staff Of Twelve

Fenton's Cristobal office has a staff of

12, seven of whom are Panamanians.

Colin Lawson, who holds a Chief Officer's ticket— making Fenton & Company the only agency having both a licensed Master and Chief Officer on its staff—is in charge of boarding operations. He is well known on both sides of the Isthmus. D. C. Langman, who came to the Isthmus

from England five years ago, heads the agency's passenger service. Arne Hauge, a citizen of Norway, is Manager of Fenton & Company's office at Balboa. He has been here since 1947 and was recently appointed Norwegian

Consul in Balboa. At present the staff of Fenton &

Company is making big plans for the

reception of their newest and biggest

ship, the Swedish American Line's new

Kungsholm. Still to make her maiden

voyage, the 20,000-ton ship with pas- senger space for about 800, is due to sail for the Canal Zone from New York next February 6 on a 55-day cruise around

South America.

MONTHLY COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC AND TOLLS

Vessels of 300 tons net or over By fiscal years

Month

Transits Tolls

(In thousands of

1954 1953

lollars)

1954 1953 1938 1938

July 638 529 457 $2,817 $2,343 *.i,030

640 533 505 2,778 2,288 2,195

612 615 444 2,591 2,636 1,936

673 461 2,910 1,981

620 435 2,611 1,893

626 439 2,679 1,845'

632 444 2,690 1,838

616 436 2,597 1,787

March 678 . 506 2,884 2,016

ApriL. _ - . 628 487 2,733 1,961 May ______________ 650 465 2,861 1,887

610 445 2,686 1,801

Totals for first 3 months of 1,890 1,677 1,406 s$8,186 $7,267 $6,161

CANAL TRANSITS--COMMERCIAL AND U . S. GOVERNMENT

First Quarter, Fiscal Years

1954 1953 1938

Atlantic

to

Pacific

Pacific to Atlantic Total Total Total

Commercial Vessels: Ocean-going _ _ _ 934 956 1,890 1.677 1,406

Small 152 159 311 324 211

1,086 1,115 2,201 2,011 1,617

**U. S. Government vessels Ocean-going.. 181 178 359 206

Small 80 54 134 106

Total commercial and U. S. Government - 1,347 1,347 2,694 2,313

*\'essels under 300 net tons or 500 displacement tons. **Vessels on which tolls are credited. Prior to July 1, 1951, Government-operated

ships transited free.
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2( 3 1262 08545 6506 THE PANAMA CANAL REVIEW November 6, 1953

Like Father, Like Son

i

COL. RICHARDSON SI. I, I E, far right, who helped to start the Canal Zone High School ROTC

program, talked over ROTC affairs just before his departure last month with two past and two present

cadrts.

J. B. Smith, Electrical Engineer, left, and Roy Reece, Assistant Electrical Engineer, served in the ROTC at Rose Polytechnic Institute where Colonel Selee was ROTC instructor 25 years ago. Their

sons, Paul Smith, second from left, and .lames Reece, are now ROTC cadets at Balboa High School where

Paul is Battalion Commander. Canal's "Miscellaneous" Cargo

Is Varied And Often Surprising

It will probably be a long time before any cargo going through the Panama

Canal has the public appeal of three Australian platypuses and their platy- pusary which transited several years ago. Possibly the fact that 10,000 five earth- worms were flown to the Canal Zone to supplement the food supply of the amazing little animals—the whole process being attended by a flurry of publicity

had something to do with the interest the animals caused. But each month there are hundreds of items, lumped under the heading of "Miscellaneous" in cold statistics, anyone of which stirs the imagination and

makes one long for more details. Since

the Panama Canal is only a passageway

for these items, many of the questions

will be forever unanswered.

How many pigs, for instance, made up

the "two tons of live pigs" which were

listed as deck cargo on the information

sheet of a vessel enroute from New

Orleans to the West Coast of South

America?

What ship needed the eight-ton anchor

carried as deck load on another ship out

of a British port to Vancouver? What About Honey?

Did the listing "Bees-honey" for the 117 tons of cargo on a ship going from

Guatemala to Bremen mean there were

both bees and honey or that the cargo was bees' honey only? If the first, how

did the crew get along with the bees and

if the second, what other sort of honey

is there? And does the fact that in one month

there were three shipments of honey

going through the Canal from the west

coast of Central America mean that Nicaraguan and Guatemalan bees are

busier at that time of the year than

any other? What were the three tons of "personal

effects'* carried as sole cargo on a ship

from Honduras to Venezuela? What was destined to go into the empty bottles, a shipload of which went

thi'ough the Canal from New York to Buenaventura? Who in California was going to use the

14,526 tons of "natural gas" carried by a ship from Houston?

Other unusual cargoes carried through

the Canal this same month included many other thought-provoking items. Milk And Marble

There was "milk," from Jacksonville

to Los Angeles, "canned milk" from

Rotterdam to Valparaiso, and "powdered

milk" from Auckland to London. Three

different ships, all from various European

ports headed for Chile, carried locomotives, and one had a pullman car aboard. Two ships carried yachts as deck cargo and another had on her deck a "five-ton boat." There were 23 tons of marble from New

York to Los Angeles, and 18 tons of poles

from Mobile to Honolulu. A ship from

Ipswich carried China clay to Vancouver.

Quebracho, for medicines or dyeing, was

the cargo on a vessel going between

Montevideo and Japan.

But one of the most interesting cargoes

of all was that listed for a ship running

between Buenaventura and New York.

It carried coffee—which is not unusual

and ox blood!

Local Rate Meal Allowance

Is Increased To 75 Cents

Seamen deckhands and other local-rate employees in the Terminals Division have had their meal allowance increased from 50 to 75 cents; this rate is now being

paid to all local-rate employees on local travel assignments.

Normally the deckhands are given

meals on board ship, but if the ship does not serve meals the deckhands are issued a "Receipt for Meals" which provides

for a box lunch. The request for the increase in meal

allowance for the deckhands, to equalize the treatment of those on local travel assignments, was made by representatives

of CIO Local 900.

New Assignment Policy

For Panama Line Ships

Effective Next Month

A new assignment policy for employees

traveling on Panama Line ships will go

into effect early next month.

Instead of the three-week notification now being made, employees will be told that they are assigned space on sailings

six weeks before the departure date. This

should give more time for them to obtain

aii', rail, and hotel reservations in the United States, order new cars, rent quarters or arrange for their children to leave

school, when school is in session.

Initial deposits to cover transportation

costs will be made four weeks in advance

of the sailing date, under the new policy.

This payment will confirm the assign- ments to space on the ships; assignments not confirmed by payment of the deposit

would be considered as canceled. Forty Years Ago

In October

Newspapers on the Isthmus and all over the United States hailed the mingling

of the waters of two oceans as Gamboa

dike was dynamited. Actually, the dike had held back the waters of the Chagres

River from the excavation in Culebra, now Gaillard, Cut.

All dry excavation in the Cut had been

completed the previous month. The

600,000 cubic yards of material in the Cut still to be removed would be taken

out by dredges.

The dynamite charges buried in the dike were fired by President Woodrow Wilson

who, from the White House, pressed a

lever ichich transmitted electrical impulses

by land telegraph and submarine cable to the Canal Zone. The factual Canal Record reported that

the blast opened a 125-foot section of the

dike, "through which water from Gatun Lake flowed in sufficient volume to complete

the filling of Culebra Cut from the dike to Cucaracha slide. The shot ivas not a large

one, as compared with some of the previous

blasts in connection with Canal work, but

it did perfect execution." Hundreds of spectators were brought to

the scene by special train from Panama

and by extra coaches on the regular south- bound train. The remainder of the dike was dynamited

a week later.

The formation of Miraflores Lake

began October 1, when a timber bulkhead was placed across the drainage culvert in the Miraflores spillway dam. This was

the final diversion of the Rio Grande and

its tributaries, the Pedro Miguel, Caimitillo, Cameron, Cocoli, and Dominica

Rivers.

Officials estimated that with normal

rainfall the lake would be raised to its normal operating level of 55 feet above

sea level by December 4.

The Canal Zone was really up to date. The Canal Record reported on October 1

that "Edison's invention, the kinetophone

nr talking moving picture machine, will be

at the Corozal

' Clubhouse Friday night

this week."

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