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CANAL

EVIE

CENTENNIAI EDITION 1976
I

-.''•
V

From

the Governor

of the fanal Zone

on the

200th anniversary

of the

United States

Governor Harold R. Parfitt

IN 1976, AS WE CELEBRATE

the Bicentennial of the United

States, the construction of the Panama

Canal stands out as one of the greatest

milestones in the history of the nation.

It not only opened the way for westward expansion, it also gave the maritime world one of its most

important links in the lanes of

international commerce.

Among the great peaceful endeavors

of mankind that have contributed

significantly to progress in the world,

the construction of the Canal stands

as an awe-inspiring achievement.

To fullv appreciate the magnitude

of this unprecedented engineering

feat, it is necessary to remember that

its successful completion in 1914

involved digging through the Continental Divide; constructing the largest

earth dam ever built up to that time; designing and building the most

massive canal locks ever envisioned; constructing the largest gates ever swung; conquering devastating

landslides; and solving environmental

and health problems of enormous

proportions.

As we look back over 200 years of

history, it is fitting that we pay tribute

to the builders of the Canal, to those men and women of many nationalities whose initiative, determination, and

devotion to duty were responsible for

its successful completion.

Since it opened on August 15, 1914,

the Canal has become a main

thoroughfare of world commerce with

over half a million vessels making

the interoceanic transit.

This outstanding record was made

possible by a dedicated work force

of Americans and Panamanians, who

continue today, as the}- have done

in the past, to operate this vital

utility for the benefit of all the

nations of the world.

7^6-l9lfe

At left: A giant container ship passes through

Caillard Cut, site of devastating

slides during construction of

the Vanama Canal.

The Panama Canal Review
Our Cover

The ditch grows wider each day

The ditch grows longer they say

The slides and the floods, the rain and

the sun

Are obstacles big in the race we Ixave run

But the end of the job is in view

Our dreams all soon will come true

But what of the town

That the waters will drown

Oh, what tvill become of you, of you?

THIS SONG, WHICH WAS

printed in the Fourth of July

program that appears in the center of the front cover expressed the feelings

of thousands of workers in 1913 as the day drew near when the Canal would

be completed.

The song was about Gorgona, a construction-day town, doomed to be

"drowned in a day by the world's highway" as the chorus of the song

said. The employees marked their last Independence Day in Gorgona with a banquet at which Col. George W.

Goethals was the guest of honor. The

dinner featured roast duck and a varied

musical program including a song called

"Patriotism, Politics and Possibilities." Morale was high as everyone had a

well justified feeling of great accomplishment. They had tackled a job that had stvmied men for centuries. They

had succeeded and they were enjoying

their triumph but there was a certain sadness at the passing of the little towns along the line.

Special recognition is given to Nan

S. Chong, Panama Collection Librarian

and Beverly C. Williams. Chief of Readers' Services at the Canal Zone

Library, for research assistance.

Roosevelt Medal

Theodore Roosevelt had seen this pride, this great esprit de corps when

he visited the Isthmus in 1906 and

had said, "I shall see if it is not possible

to provide for some little memorial

which will always distinguish the man

who has done his work well on the

Isthmus." So in 1908, copper pipe col- lected from old French excavators, bronze bearings and 200 pounds of tin found in an old French warehouse were

sent to the Philadelphia Mint to be

cast into "Roosevelt Medals."

The Roosevelt Medal on the front cover was presented to Robert W.

Glaw for service between 1904 and

1914. He was one of the few men to earn the medal and the maximum number of 2-year bars, having served the

entire construction period.

Souvenir Shovel

Another farewell function marking

the closing of the Gorgona shops was

a smoker where souvenir shovels were

given as favors. These shovels and the star-shaped device which is inscribed "The I.C.C. Won't Let Me" were cast from scrap at the Gorgona foundry.

I.C.C. stands for Isthmian Canal Commission.

Identification Tags

Scattered over both sides of the cover are brass identification tags which were issued by the Accounting Depart- ment of the I.C.C. Employees presented

these to receive their pay and to gain

access to various construction sites. Even Fido had his own identification

tag. The dog license at lower left on

the front cover was issued at Empire,

another construction-day town. The

photo type identification disc attached

to the key ring was issued in 1918.

Fire Department

The first paid fire company was es- tablished in 1906 and badges, like the

silver colored one on the front cover, were issued to 320 volunteer firemen

who supplemented the regular force of 27 paid members.

Athletic Medals

At Ancon on the Fourth of July,

1908, gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded in each athletic event. The one lying on the program was for the pole vault.

Commemorative Medal

"The Panama Canal Opened 1914

Gateway to World Commerce" is engraved on the face of the silver commemorative coin-medal in the upper

left comer of the front cover. It was

privately struck by the National Commemorative Society. On the reverse is a portrait of Goethals. Other items on the front cover are postage stamps honoring Stevens, Goethals, and Gorgas, a matchbook cover

advertising the Tivoli and Washington

hotels, a snapshot of a group visiting Gaillard Cut; and a box of damp proof

matches made in Sweden "expresslv for the Panama Canal," a brand still sold

in the Canal retail stores.

The I.C.C. Band

The I.C.C. Band was organized in 1905 and the insignia at lower left on

the front cover was worn on the khaki

uniforms. Concerts were given once a month.

The Locks

The yellowed photograph on the fold

is described on the back as "Gatun

Locks during construction—bridge and

crane used for gate erection."

Commissary Books

Also on the fold is a commissary

book. These coupon books were used

in lieu of money in commissaries,

hotels and clubhouses during and after

Spring 1976
HAROLD R. PARFITT

Governor-President

RICHARD L. HUNT

Lieutenant Governor

FRANK A. BALDWIN

PANAMA ggg CANAL

Rtvitv/

WILLIE K. FRIAR

Editor, English Edition

JOSE T. TUSION H.

Editor, Spanish Edition

Writers Panama Canal Information Officer Official Panama Canal Publication Vic Canel, Fannie P. Hernandez

Review articles may be reprinted without further clearance. Credit to the Review will he appreciated.

The Panama Canal Review is published twice a year. Yearly subscription: regular mail $1.50, airmail $3, single copies 75 cents.

For subscription, send check or money order, made payable to the Panama Canal Company, to Panama Canal Review, Box M, Balboa Heights, C.Z.

Editorial Office is located in Room 100, Administration Building, Balboa Heights, C.Z.

Printed at the Panama Canal Printing Plant, La Boca, C.Z.

the construction of the Canal. An open

book showing the coupons is at bottom

left on the back cover.

Patent Medicine

"Two worldwide wonders, the Pan- ama Canal for universal commerce and

Hostetter's Stomach Bitters for dyspepsia, indigestion and malaria" is the ad- vertisement on the postcard, at the top

of the back cover, which was typical of patent medicine promotion during

construction days.

Opium Bottle The small bottle, called an "opium

bottle," contained a Chinese medication which still can be bought today.

The bottle dates from the late 1800's, the French Canal construction period.

Ancon Cemetery

Also illustrative of the ravages of disease on the Isthmus is the snapshot, on the back cover, of the Ancon Cemetery, which was later relocated.

The Swill Ticket

Malaria and yellow fever are well known as diseases which took their toll but cholera was also a problem. In an

intensive effort to stamp out cholera, the Canal Health Department required

that all swill, which was composed of food scraps from the clubhouses,

hotels, and mess halls, be cooked before being fed to hogs. Tickets were issued

to farmers entitling them to purchase

prescribed amounts of cooked swill. Hog Farm

Since little was available on the Isth- mus, the Canal had to operate a hog

farm, as indicated by this shipping tag. bakery, dairv, mattress factory, and

numerous other plants and services.

Panama Canal Toy

On July 9, 1912, a patent was issued

for a Panama Canal puzzle which has

a drawing of Miraflores and Gatun

Locks inside a small box. The object of

the game is to roll each of three small

balls through the gates of the locks. Tiny metal strips represent the locks.

Ashtray

"WE DONE OUR DAM'DEST" is inscribed on the right rim of the ashtray and "The Society of the Chagres

Annual Dinner, 1915" on the left rim. This society was composed of I.C.C. and Panama Railroad Company employees who had earned the Roosevelt Medal with two bars prior to the opening of the Canal.

Postcard

The tinted postcard shows members

of the Third Isthmian Canal Commission. From left to right (with Goethals

in center) are: Lt. Col. William L.

Sibert, Joseph C. S. Blackbum, Rear Adm. Harry Harwood Rousseau, Joseph

Bucklin Bishop, Col. Harrv F. Hodges,

Col. William C. Gorgas, and Lt. Col. David Gaillard.

French Coin

A reminder of the long hard valiant years of digging by the French is the French coin at top right on back cover. On it is engraved "Decret du 30

Avril 1880."

Tourist Brochure

The Canal has always been a popular

tourist attraction. In lower right of back cover is a 1913 brochure dis- tributed bv the Panama Railroad Company. It offers "reserved seats in observation cars" for a close-up look at the construction work.

Museum Items

All of these items, except for several from the private collection of Adrien

Bouche, of the Transit Operations Division, are in the Canal Zone LibraryMuseum.

To create the cover, these articles were arranged on a sheet of plate glass

which was suspended over an American flag. Cover design by Willie K.

Friar, cover photograph by Don Goode.

Contents

Governor's Bicentennial

Message 3

Col. George W. Goethals' Address

at Cristobal, July 4, 1911 6

Fourth of July Programs 8

From aquatic wrestling

to submarine rides,

celebrations reflect changing times

The Panama Railroad 10

Without the railroad

there would have been no Panama Canal

A Diverse Labor Force 17

An efficient operation

made possible by

far-sighted engineers and

carefully trained personnel

A View From the Bridge 22

The evolution of the pilot

force and a revieic of some

of the ships that have

transited since 1914

Bicentennial Molas 30

The Cunas contribution

to Curundu's Bicentennial

Project

The "Chief" Joins

"Operation Sail 76" 31

Women and Construction Days 32

The men said

"No women, no work"

Shipping Statistics 37

Credits: Photos inside front and back cover are by Don Goode. Centerspread photos by Arthur

L. Pollack.

The Panama Canal Review
yfDDRESS DELIVERED BY COL. GEO. W.

^/-f GOETHALS, U.S.A., -IT CRISTOBAL, C.Z.,

JL'LY -/, 19/ 1, AT THE EXERCISES IN

CONNECTION WITH THE CELEBRATION OF

THE DAY BY AMERICANS ON THE ISTHMUS

OF PANAMA.

This is the sixth formal celebration of the Fourth of

July by Americans on the Isthmus of Panama. There was

no observance of the day in 1904, because Canal work

had scarcely begun at that time. In 1905 the black shadow

of pestilence, which was hovering over the Isthmus, was

at its deepest tinge when the anniversary of our nation's birth to freedom arrived. There were, or had been, in hospital stricken with yellow fever, more than 100 Americans, a third of whom were gathered into the final harvest

of death. Those who had escaped were in no mood for jubilation of any sort. The one desire of the large majority was to flee as quickly as possible from what they believed

to be an accursed land. Their fright-dimmed eyes could

not see so far into the near future as to catch the first glimmer of the coming dawn of a veritable dav of free- dom for the Isthmus—the day that was to mark its lasting

deliverance from the scourge of centuries, and convert it from a valley of death into a land of health and comfort.

Yet a visible sign of the coming deliverance was held

up before them on July 4th, 1905. On that day an abundant supply of pure water was turned into the new mains,

constructed by Americans under the streets of Panama,

and the event was celebrated by a solemn high mass in the cathedral. This was the forerunner of the transfor- mation of the cities of Panama and Colon from the lead- ing pest holes of the earth into the best paved, best sewered, and best watered cities in Central America. It was also the first formal demonstration that the onward,

irresistible, and uplifting march of American progress had penetrated the tropics. Surely there could be no more

suitable day for the celebration of an event so momentous

as this than the birthday of American freedom.

Since 1905, every succeeding Fourth of July has been

celebrated with fitting observances, and with patriotic

enthusiasm, by the Americans on the Isthmus. To my

mind, no citizens of the United States anywhere, either within the borders of the Republic, or in other lands,

have higher claim to a voice in the great national chorus

of pride and rejoicing on this day, than is possessed by

the workers on the Canal. They constitute the advance

guard in the new era of progress upon which our nation has entered. The American Republic of today is a greater

and grander one than that which our forefathers founded

135 years ago. It has expanded from a little group of 13 sparsely settled States, with a population of barely

2,000,000, with an empty treasury and undeveloped

resources, into a great nation of 48 States, and four out- lying possessions, with a population of 100,000,000, a treasury which sustains easily an annual national expenditure of more than a billion dollars, and with resources

so abounding as to be virtually unlimited. From an iso- lated unit among nations, it has expanded into a world

power second to no other on the globe. Impelled by the imperious hand of destinv, it has broken over its borders,

and has carried its banner of enlightenment into some

of the darkest regions of the earth. Its war with Spain,

into which the march of human progress, moving with

the unceasing and resistless force of a glacier, thrust it, and which history will record as among the most right- eous of all wars, opened the way into this new era. The

nation had no choice but to move forward into it, to

rise to the new duties forced upon it, and perform them

to the uttermost of its ability. How well it has met the

test, conditions in Cuba, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and on the Isthmus of Panama, bear eloquent testi- mony. In all of these places, the stamp of American

energy, intelligence, justice, indomitable perseverance, has been affixed so clearly that all the world may see and understand.

I have said that in this new era of American progress, the workers on the Panama Canal, are the advance guard.

They hold that position because of the region in which

they are carrying it to its successful completion. They

are cutting a highway of commerce through what was a plague spot of the world, and, in doing so, they are showing the world how to rid itself of all plague spots. As

agents of the American Nation, they are showing the world

what can be accomplished by a government which rests upon the popular will, and which is a government of, and

by, and for, the people; showing it that popular govern- ment, administered honestly and intelligently, is an agency for human welfare and happiness, as well as for national glory. Said a Japanese official, recently visiting the Isthmus: "No nation but the great, rich American

nation could build this Canal. No nation can imitate it. We have many things to learn from you."

What the work here has accomplished for the welfare and happiness of the human race can only be dimly

perceived now. When the Canal is thrown open to the shipping of the world; when the coast line of the United

States thus becomes almost continuous from Maine to Alaska; when, in the American Navy, there is no longer an Atlantic or a Pacific fleet, but simply an American

Spring 1976
.Again.** a background of American flags held by girls and boys

dressed in white, Colonel Goetltals gives the Fourth of July

address, which is reprinted on these pages. At far left, on the

speaker's stand, are Federico Boyd, at that time Panamanian

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and other dignitaries

from Panama and the Canal Zone. At right, is the 1911 program which featured tlie Liberty Bell stamped in gold on

the cover.

fleet, patrolling that coast line as national police for the maintenance of order and the preservation of international peace; when American commerce and American

capital, seeking new fields through the shortened line

of communication, enter into, and develop, the resources

of those countries past whose shores that line extends,

carrying with them American principles of government

and American energy, enterprise, and perseverance—when

all these sure developments of the future shall come to

pass, then the whole world will recognize the well-nigh

limitless value of the contribution to human welfare and

happiness which the American nation made when it built the Panama Canal.

[he Panama Canal Review
CWSTOML. C»N»l ZONC

THE PIPE RACE WILL CONsist of running 100 yards,

picking up a pipe, box of matches,

and pack of tobacco that have been

placed on the ground about 33 yards

apart, the winner being the first man

to cross the line with his pipe

smoking."

This race was one of the manv

events on the program when Goethals gave the Fourth of Julv address in 1911 and was tvpical of the fun and

games that were a part of the

enthusiastic celebrations that began

on the Isthmus in 1906. During construction days,

entertainment depended on the

creativitv and initiative of the local residents and the Fourth of July

provided an occasion, not only for

patriotic celebrations, but for everyone on both sides of the Isthmus to get

together for a dav of band concerts and contests of all varieties. A look at the carefullv executed

red, white and blue programs over

the \ears gives some insight into the changing times on the Isthmus and

the world at large.

The Fourth of July was one of the

biggest events of the vear and plans

started far in advance. Committees

were formed, responsibilities assigned,

and bv the time the fourth rolled around, there was an impressive

program of entertainment to suit

all tastes. Bv 1914, the program had grown

to 24 pages and featured tennis matches, all tvpes of track events and

an "aquatic wrestling match" which

was described as a 'free for all to take place on a greased 20-foot floating

platform between Piers 8 and 9. Winner to be the last on the platform."

Scheduled for the evening was a grand ball at 9 p.m. at Pier 9 in Cristobal. Bv 1917, World War I was reflected

in the thick program which featured Uncle Sam in red, white and blue in the centerspread. In one hand he held

a battleship which he was placing in the Canal locks. In the other a pick

as a tribute to the builders of the Canal. Movies first appeared in the 1918

celebrations with "War Pictures" and

"Charlie Chaplin" listed as the titles of the films to be shown at the Balboa

Stadium.

The high point of the evening was

an open-air dance at the Administration Building Promenade at 8:30 with

music by the 15th Naval District md the 5th Coast Artillerv bands.

In 1920, there was an exhibition

flight of a dirigible and by 1923, the airplane had become a part of the entertainment with an aerial exhibition

including; stunt riving bv two "SE5s"

over Limon Bav. Instructions for the

"Triangular Airplane Pace" included

the information that "the spare wheel

and all armament equipment may be

removed; large size wheels will be

used and anv tvpe propeller."

"Miss Liberty" arrived by seaplane,

accompanied bv maids of honor and

train bearers. This was followed by a baby contest. To add to the festive atmosphere,

flags, horns, squawkers, patriotic

cockade hats for boys and Miss Liberty

hats for girls, blowout ticklers, lolly- pops and Eskimo pies were distributed

to all the children. Mule and "electric truck" jov rides and raspberry punch

were also available. The program advised that "tiny tots are expected to be dressed in red,

white and blue (if possible)."

Fourth of July

Programs Reflect

Changing Times

Spectacular fireworks were a part of everv program. The 1908 program

featured 46 different scenes and a

Ivpical displav was that of 1916 which

included rockets, and stars shot from

submarines in Limon Bay followed by

a grand displav near Cristobal docks.

Listed on the program was a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt, a portrait of George Washington, American bcautv

roses, a bicycle race, destruction of a battleship by submarine and

Niagara Falls. According to Mrs. Bruce Sanders,

who came to the Isthmus in 1910,

and is visiting here this vear, these

elaborate displays were made possible

by donations from employees, civic organizations and Panama businesses. Mrs. Sanders also mentioned that

in 1920 one of the highpoints of the

dav, for adults and children, was a

ride on a submarine which included

submerging in Limon Bav. The Fourth of Julv continues to be

a popular celebration in the Canal

Zone where the best known street is Fourth of July Avenue.

8 Spring 1976
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Royal palms lining the Prado were not yet

fully grown when this picture teas taken on July 4, 1919. But many present day

residents will recognize the concrete

family quarters lining the avenue and

the Balboa Elementary School at left. The wooden structure at right, originally

the Balboa Police Station, subsequently

served as the Civil Affairs Building

and as tlte women's dormitory for Canal Zone College before it was

finally torn down.

Www

til Miii

In the old days, folks flocked to the spanking-new Administration Building for patriotic

ceremonies on Independence Day: In 1915, despite the weather, turn wore coats and

ties and women were decked out in long dresses. Though the classic straw skimmers

were in vogue. East Indian employees and concessionaires like the group at left,

protected their heads from the tropical sun with the traditional turban.

Except for the profusion of flags, the American eagle topping the tile roof and

the natty uniforms, the Balboa Fire

Station looked much the same 60 years ago

as it will on July 4, 1976, when the United States celebrates the 200th

anniversary of its independence.

The Panama Canal Review
I"S

EASY, AND CHEAP, AND

safe to travel between Colon and

Panama these days. Just board any of the red, white and blue Panama Rail- road cars, and relax. Want to be cool and dry, insulated from the torrential ram and merciless sun? Choose an air- conditioned car and, if you didn't buy

a ticket at the station, pay the con- ductor SI. 50 when he comes around.

Prefer an open window so you can see

the Canal better, search for alligators, savor the surrounding jungle and the soggy swamps over which you skim?

Panama Railroad the most audacious

piece of engineering the world has

known. Begun barelv 20 years after the first railroad had been built in the United States, it presented difficulties of a sort no man had struggled with

before. As Willis J. Abbot pointed out

in 1914: "Engineers had learned how to cut down hills, tunnel mountains and bridge

rivers, but to build a roadbed firm enough to support heavy trains in a bottomless swamp; to run a line through a jungle that seemed to grow

up again before the transit could fol- low the axe man; to grapple with a

river that had been known to rise 40

feet in a day; to eat lunch standing

thigh deep in water with friendly alli- gators looking on from adjacent logs,

and to do all this amid the unceasing

buzzing of venomous insects whose

sting, as we learned half a century

later, carried the germs of malaria and

vellow fever—this was a new draft upon

engineering skill and endurance that

In late 1848, the Government of New Granada (Colombia) awarded a

railroad concession to Aspinwall and

his associates, and a few months later the Panama Railroad Company was

incorporated under the laws of New

York. Hardly had the first of Aspinwall's

steamships left on its round-the-Horn

trip to Panama than news of the dis- coverv of gold in California hit the East Coast. By the time the steamer put

into port at Panama, there were hundreds of would-be prospectors fighting

for space on the ship.

These Forty-Niners had traveled the water route across the Isthmus, debarking at the town of Chagres below Fort San Lorenzo and hiring boatmen to pole them upriver in dugout canoes. Leaving the water at Cruces, they

proceeded on muleback through the

jungle to Panama. The 4-to-8-day trip was a harrowing experience.

The Gold Rush was on. So, soon, u as the business of building a railroad,

The Panama litii

Pick a regular coach, and when the man comes give him a dollar. Either way, vou'll clatter across the Isthmus

in about an hour and a half. Unless vou're earning a copv of the Railroad Division's pamphlet Your Trip on the Panama Railroad and watching

the mileposts, you won't even notice when you cross the continental divide,

so effortless will the trip be. It was not always so. Those who know its storv call the

might well stagger the best." An average of only 8 miles of track were laid a vear, until, after 5 years, the first train ran from sea to sea. Since that time, the railroad has been

rebuilt twice. In 1905, it was necessary

to rehabilitate the original road so it could withstand the burdens imposed

on it bv Canal construction. And when

it was at last decided to build a lock

canal, which required damming the waters of the Chagres River to form

the largest man-made lake the world

had vet seen, some 40 miles of the roadbed were relocated on higher

ground. It is on this line that today's passenger rides. The storv of the first Panama Rail- road begins with steamships. In 1847,

William Henrv Aspinwall, a wealthy

New York merchant, contracted to carrv the U.S. mails between Panama

and Oregon. This raised a few eye- brows in Wall Street, for the contract showed no promise of profit. But Aspinwall was a man of vision; he wanted

to build a railroad across the Isthmus

and combine sea and land routes into one great svstem that would open up

the whole Pacific.

By Pandora Aleman

as engineer George M. Totten and a small workforce set about clearing the

island of Manzanillo, chosen as the

Atlantic terminus. His workforce, drawn

from the four corners of the earthEngland, France, Ireland, Germany,

Austria, China, India, Jamaica, Colombia—eventually numbered in the thousands. The passenger boarding at Colon

todav will see little that suggests the

sight that greeted the first railroaders. Separated from the mainland by a narrow strait, the island was little more

than a square mile of virgin mangrove

swamp abounding with alligators and

other reptiles and swarming with mosquitos and sandflies.

Above:

An old woodcut captures the

flavor of the Aspinwall station

in the mid-1800s.

At left: Flash floods like this one near Mindi on tlie old line in 1906 plagued

railroad construction and operations

from the day work began.

10 Spring 1976
Today, the train pulls smoothly out

of Colon station and about 5 minutes

later arrives at Mount Hope. It took

a 400-man workforce 4 months to cut

a swath through the tangled vegetation

to this, the first high ground on their route. They called the place MonkeyHill "owing to the multitude of monkeys gamboling and chattering in the

foliage."

Getting the tracks laid to this point was another matter. When Manzanillo

Island had been cleared and partlv

filled, they built a causeway across the narrow channel to the mainland. Over

the years, the entire channel was filled in and Manzanillo became a permanent

part of the mainland.

Coming into Mount Hope, the traveler sees a cemetery on the hillside to the left, with the date "1908" over the arched gate. The date is misleading,

for the cemetery antedates the Canal

by over half a century. In March 1851,

the official railroad cemetery was es- tablished here. As the number of graves grew and the monkeys vanished,

the place was christened Mount Hope.

Throughout the construction years, there was a daily funeral train to Mount Hope.

Legend has it that one man died for every tie laid—a gross exaggeration. But

it is fact that bv 1855 there were more

than 6,000 graves at Mount Hope, and

the total number of railroad deaths

has been estimated at 12,000.

Though it raav be apparent to the

traveler todav that from Mount Hope

to Gatun he has sped along through

swampv terrain, there is nothing in the easy 10-minute ride to indicate his proximity to the legendarv Black

Swamp, which nearly defeated the rail- road project when it had barelv begun.

Leaving Monkev Hill, the rails were

to follow Navy, or Limon, Bav about

3 miles to the "Mindee" River, and

from there cross a 3-mile stretch of quicksand and sinkholes, where in

Its new coat of red, white and blue paint in honor of the Bicentennial of the United States of America does not exempt Engine 901 from work.

Here, with a string of passenger cars in tow, it rounds the bend near Pedro Miguel Locks on one of its three daily transcontinental trips.

places bottom was not found even at 200 feet. Tons upon tons of trees and

rock were fed into the maw of the swamp, with no apparent effect. At

last, flatcars were chained together and

sunk in sections to make a floating base

for the roadbed. The rails in place, trainloads of rock were dumped on

either side in hopes that the fill would

hold the floating foundation steady.

The desperate trick worked. But, in years to come, cars left too long on

this section would simplv disappear,

leaving "only a muddy blank on the

right of way."

The first train of work cars ran to Gatun on October 1, 1851. The very

worst of the construction work was

past, but the company's funds were

exhausted—and what investor would

risk more monev on a company that had spent 20 months laying 8 miles of track in the wilderness? Nature, which

so far had given nothing but trouble, now offered a helping hand. Beset by

a hurricane that prevented transfer of

their passengers to the tiny native boats

at Chagres, two steamships took shelter

in Navv Bav. They dropped anchor

near the railroad company's pier on

Manzanillo, and when the gold-rabid passengers spied the train, there was

no keeping them back. Thev piled themselves and their baggage onto the work cars and rode

to Gatun, where they hired boats and

proceeded to Cruces without waiting

for the storm to subside. When Wall Street heard that the far-from-complete railway had already

carried over a thousand passengers, confidence was restored, credit was re- established, and work went on. Steamers made Manzanillo their stopping

place, the railroad went into the pas- senger business in earnest, and Chagres

faded into the jungle. At Gatun the train today offers travelers an excellent view of the mile- long Canal locks and, if it is not hidden

bv a transiting ship, the spillway of Gatun Dam, at whose immenseness he

The Panama Canal Review 11
can only guess by the vastness of the waters it holds back. From here to Gamboa, the train

skirts the lake, alternately penetrating

stretches of dense jungle and offering an unobstructed view of the ships

wending their way along the main

channel. Much of the time those ships are traveling far nearer to the original railroad bed, now under 40 to 75 feet of water, than the observer on the

train. Navigational charts in the Panama

Canal Company Pilot's Handbook show

Lion Island, Tiger Islands, Bohio

Reach, Buena Vista Point, Frijoles,

Barbacoa Island, Gorgona Islands, Bas Obispo Reach, Empire Reach, and

other names that conjure up memories

of way-stations on the original railroad. After the railroad's first transporting

of California-bound passengers to Gatun, the tracks pushed on through

the Chagres Vallev past Lion and Tiger

Hills—so named by the railroad construction crews because, as Joseph L. Schott savs in Rails Across Panama,

"their monkey population filled the

nights with a roaring sound that was

at first mistaken for the sounds of

lions and tigers." By March 1852 the road had been completed to Bohio Sol- dado, 8 miles beyond Gatun, and pas- senger trains met every steamer arriving

in Navy Bay.

Fifty-one engineers

and draftsmen

died in the

cholera epidemic

Passing through Buena Vistita, the

line reached "Frijoli" 2 months later. The passenger today may take note of Frijoles Station, about 20 miles from

Colon on today's route, onlv if his train pulls to a stop to allow passengers to catch a launch for Barro Colorado

Island, where the Smithsonian Institu- tion maintains a wildlife preserve. By July 1852, the tracks extended

to Barbacoas, 23 miles from Aspinwall,

as the Atlantic terminus was now

called. Travelers could come halfway

across the Isthmus by train, but the road had cost far more than antici- pated.

To make matters worse, in the spring

and summer of that year, a cholera epidemic had struck the Isthmus. Many

of the workers, hit suddenly with

cramps, managed to drag themselves

to the tracks, where they were picked

up and carried to the hospital at Aspinwall. The less fortunate were swal- lowed up by sinkholes or eaten alive by ants and land crabs. All but one of Totten's entire technical staff—51 engi- neers and draftsmen—died in the epidemic, which paralyzed progress on the road until it ran its course in late August.

Into this death trap marched the Fourth Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Armv, which was being sent to California. The group traveled by rail to

• -^ -{--'.-i.

Above: Even before its completion, the Panama Railroad was beset by accidents

like this one near Gatun on top of all the disasters a hostile nature could send its way.

Above left: Close by Miraflores Locks and Spillway, this stone railroad bridge

dating from 1855 stands in mute tribute to the men who gave their all to build

tlie world's first transcontinental railway.

At left: An Isthmian Canal Commission locomotive steams across a trestle in 1907,

hauling loaded dirt cars to one of countless dump sites while work on

a culvert goes on below.

12 Spring 1976
Barbacoas; from there, the main body

of men marched over the trail from

Gorgona to Panama. The sick, the women and children, the baggage and

one company were to go upriver by

boat and then take the somewhat

shorter trail from Cruces. With the second group was Capt.

U.S. Grant, the regimental quarter- master. Though mules had been ar- ranged for at a reasonable rate, the owner held out for the higher rates he was offered by civilian travelers. After

a dozen cholera deaths and a 5-day

wait, Grant in desperation paid the higher rate for the promised mules. Of that terrible transcontinental jour- ney, Schott wrote: "As long as Grant

lived he would tell more of the hellish march across- Panama than of any of

his famous battles. The rain, the mud,

the sick, and the dying on the jungle

trail made a lifelong impression on

him. In his old age he told his inti- mates that the burdens put on him . . . had served at least one good purpose by revealing to him his own 'unguessed

powers at this business of managing a command of military men'." It was this same Ulysses S. Grant who, as com- mander of the Union army, later ac- cepted Confederate Gen. Robert E.

Lee's surrender at Appomattox and

went on to become President of the United States. Once the cholera had subsided, the

railroaders faced the challenge of build- ing a bridge across the Chagres at Barbacoas. Totten argued hotlv in favor

of an iron bridge. But the board of di- rectors, wanting a less costlv temporarv

wooden structure, contracted out the remainder of the railroad work. So Minor C. Story, who had earned

a reputation as a boy wonder of the

railroad business, came to the Isthmus

and set about building a bridge spanning the 300-foot-wide river that had

been known to rise 40 feet in a single

night. All through the dry season his men worked; but when the rains began

in April the nearly finished bridge was

swept away by the first flood. The rail- road again placed Totten in charge. Totten completed a 625-foot, six- span bridge of boiler iron at Barbacoas

by the end of November 1853. Meanwhile, crossing the Isthmus by train, boat, and mule, was still a 36-hour

journey, most of which was taken up

by the ride over the road from Las

Cruces. This excerpt from the journal of one who crossed the Isthmus that year shows why: "The road, a narrow

bridle-path through the forest, was bad

bevond description; in manv places the mud was so deep that it covered the

legs of both mule and rider, while

those who were not thrown off into

it, were frequently obliged to unseat themselves to allow the animal to get out of it." Totten sent a workforce to widen and repair the road in an at- tempt to shorten the transit time. Today, arching the malodorous Curundu River just outside Fort Clavton's Curundu Gate No. 2 and beside Frangipani Avenue, stands a small bridge,

unheeded and overgrown. Its well- hewn stones and careful mortar work

mark it as one of those that Totten's men built or rehabilitated on the fabled Las Cruces trail. From Gorgona on the west bank of the Chagres, the road was to go to Matachin (now under water in the general vicinity of present-day Gamboa),

then follow the valley of the Obispo

River. Leaving the river, it would climb to Emperador (Empire) and finally to the Summit, or Culebra, 40 railroad miles

from Manzanillo Island. From there, the rails would begin a winding des- cent to the Pacific, cross the Rio Grande

and follow its east bank across the Pedro Miguel, Caimitillo and Cardenas

rivers. Then it would traverse the beautiful vallev of Paraiso, the broad plain of "Corrisal" and the swamp of "Cor- rendeu" till it neared Mount Ancon

and, finally, the sparkling cathedral

At left: Few today would recognize this building

as the old Panama station, here festooned and bedecked with flags to celebrate the third anniversary of Panama's independence.

Below: The famed Las Cruces Trail, which

formed part of the old Isthmian "water route," before the railroad was built.

towers, red tile roofs and ancient fortifications of the city of Panama.

Around the end of March 1854, a thousand Chinese laborers arrived at Panama and were put to work, along

with Irishmen and others, excavating a cut in the red clay between Gorgona

and Matachin. The small, slight men

worked steadily and well. But their opium smoking scandalized their Irish coworkers, whose protest, together with

a New York bookkeeper's decision that

it was an unnecessary expense, put a

stop to the importation of the drug by

the railroad commissary. Within weeks,

there were mass suicides. According to Schott, Totten's investigation of the Chinese incident showed that their depression over the deaths of a number

of their group from fever had been

deepened bv withdrawal from the drug

to the point where they chose suicide

The Panama Canal Review 13
At right: Motor Car No. 4, the "Yellow Peril" carried Chief Engineer

Goetlials on inspection trips. Here, he and Mrs. Goethals

are seen with a group of visitors.

Below left: This view of the work in progress at Pedro Miguel Locks

in 1911 underscores the vital role played by the railroad.

Below right: Before the Panama Railroad manager invented a mechanical

track-shifter, gangs like this one of 150 men had to move

the tracks, ties and all, to new locations in the Cut so steamshovels could attack new ground.

Bottom left: Gone are the days when a train pulling out of Panama Station would hold up traffic on Central Avenue. The station, visible in tlie background of this 1930 photograph,

has been renovated by the Panamanian Government and is soon to become an anthropological museum.

Bottom right: At the Balboa Heights station, a plaque (marked with arrow)

honors George M. Totten, who as chief engineer of the Panama Railroad pushed the transisthmian railway through

to completion in 1855.

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14 Spring 1976
as the only escape from the hell of

their existence. Work was at last inching along at the Pacific end, and on the rainy night

of January 27, 1855, the last rail joined

the two sections— 14 years before completion of the first transcontinental rail- road in the United States. The next day, 4 years and 9 months

after work had begun, a train ran from

ocean to ocean. The road, 47.51 miles

long, crossed 170 waterways, 36 of which required bridges more than 10

feet long. Then, as now, it was a single

5-foot-gage track with sidings at points

along the way.

It had cost around $7 million—about

$150,000 a mile. But even before it was finished it had earned roughly a

third of its cost by transporting pas- sengers and freight. By the end of 1858, it had grossed over $8 million. The company fixed what it thought

would be prohibitive tariffs in the hope

of controlling the number of users clamoring for its services. It set the

first-class rate at $25 gold, and "steer- age" passage at $10 gold. For $5, one

could walk the track from sea to sea. The outrageous fares stood for 20

vears. The railroad had given Panama a tremendous advantage over other possible sites for an interoceanic canal.

Its construction had given engineers an

intimate knowledge of the problems

posed bv the terrain and climate, and

it was itself the most indispensable of

all tools for digging a canal. Under the terms of its concession, the Panama Railroad had the right to prevent construction of a canal near its own transit line. So in 1881 the French

canal company purchased nearly all of the company's stock for $20 million. The French canal enterprise folded,

and the railroad collapsed along with

it. Its condition, when in 1904 the U.S. Government bought it from the French

canal company and the remaining

stockholders for a mere $9 million, has

been succinctly described as "two

streaks of rust and a right of way."

It was the chief engineer of the

Canal, John F. Stevens, who rescued

the railroad from chaos and created the

organization that would carry the Canal

construction through to completion.

Stevens, a respected railroad engineer, came to the Isthmus in 1905. He

postponed large-scale excavation and

gave priority to the construction of housing, shops and docks and to the

sanitation work. Above all, he concentrated on the problem of transportation.

To construct the Canal, an enormous amount of earth and rock would have

to be excavated and moved over dis- tances ranging from 3 to 30 miles. Stevens set about preparing the rail- road for the enormous job it had to do. Heavier rails were laid, new rolling stock was purchased, and the organization became a model of efficiency. By

the end of 1906, 37 miles of the Pan- ama Railroad had been double-tracked

to accommodate not only the endless stream of dirt cars but also the vastly

increased commercial traffic of Canal

construction days.

He carefully selected dumping sites, laid out a complex trackage system in Culebra Cut, and coordinated dirt train schedules with the excavation work.

Today, as the train pulls out from

Gamboa and crosses the 1,320-foot

steel-girder bridge that spans the Chagres, passengers may be able to

John F. Stevens

rescued the railroad

from chaos and

created the

organization that

built the Canal

see a ship emerge from the narrow

confines of the Cut. But in Canal construction days a passenger on the

world's busiest railroad was afforded a

different view.

In 1912, Forbes Lindsay wrote: "In

the Cut, the scene is of the busiest. Dirt trains are moving in every direction, or standing to be filled. Steam

shovels take 5 cubic yards of material and make a dump every 15 or 20 sec- onds. Not a moment is lost unnecessarily. . . . The strings of cars move

back and forth like shuttles in a loom

and nothing is allowed to interfere with their regularity. All other traffic gives way to the dirt car." There were in reality two systems

operating together. The Isthmian Canal

Commission operated the work lines, and the Panama Railroad, still a separate entity though government owned,

handled passenger and commercial

freight traffic in addition to supporting

the Canal operation with its steamships, commissaries, bakery, laundry

and cold-storage plant. In all there were about 300 miles of trackage.

A peculiarity of the excavation rail- road system was aptly described by

Abbot: "One of the witticisms of the Zone is that the Panama is the only

railroad that runs crosswise as well as lengthwise. This jest is . . . based on

the practice of picking up every night

or two some thousand feet of track in the Canal bed and moving it bodily,

ties and all, some feet to a new line. This is made necessary when the steamshovels have dug out all the rock and

dirt that can be reached from the old

line, and it is accomplished by machines called track-shifters, each of which accomplishes the work of hundreds of men."

Another oddity seen along the tracks was the gasoline-propelled pumpkincolored contraption—something between

an automobile and a locomotive—which

every morning took Stevens' successor, Chief Engineer Col. George W. Goethals, to inspect the work. Known vari- ously as the Yellow Peril and the Brain

Wagon, it would on a typical day carry the Old Man to Pedro Miguel, where

he would alight and, umbrella in hand,

walk along the construction line north

to Gamboa or south to Corozal. Surveys for the new, relocated rail- road line had been completed in November 1906, and in June 1907 work

began. It progressed rapidly, as in contrast to the pioneer railroaders the Canal men had a well-trained, well- housed, well-fed, and healthy workforce of some 40,000 men—not to mention their superior equipment. At first it was planned to carry the

railroad through Culebra Cut on a berm along the east side, 10 feet above

the water level, but the slides made

this impossible. So after passing Gamboa today's traveler leaves water's edge

at Bas Obispo. The train follows a line cut around Gold Hill through a ridge

of solid rock, and runs down the Pedro

Miguel Valley to Paraiso. From there,

it practically parallels the Canal to Pan- ama, passing the locks at Pedro Miguel

and Miraflores. The new line has at

least one feature the old one lacked:

a 736-foot tunnel cuts through Miraflores hill, providing a bit of novelty

and, with its sudden blackness on a bright day, startling children making

their first transcontinental journey.

The new 47.2-mile-long railroad was

ready by May 1912. After half a century of service to world progress, the

original Panama Railroad line was

The Panama Canal Review 15
Paymasters and guards relax in the Isthmian Canal Commission's Pay Car

after paying workers along the route.

abandoned to make way for the Canal

it had helped create. Fittingly, when

the Canal was inaugurated on August 15, 1914, the ship chosen to make

the initial transit was the Panama Rail- road steamship Ancon. It traveled from

Cristobal to Panama Bay in 9 hours

and 40 minutes under the watchful gaze of Goethals, who stationed himself at vantage points along the way.

Since that day, as before it, the Pan- ama Railroad has carried on its proud

tradition of service to the Canal, to Panama, and to the world. The only

year-round passenger and freight operation of its kind run by the United

States Government, it runs seven trans- continental round-trips for passengers

daily (six on weekends) and a roundtrip freight train with one car for passengers nightly.

Its 1,600-horsepower 75-ton Dieselelectric Alco-GE road and switching

locomotives are a far cry from the tiny

wood-fueled steam engines that per- formed a heroic task in the early days

of railroad building. And its long, roomv air-conditioned steel coaches

with comfortable reclining seats are hardlv reminiscent of the original little wooden cars, with their Venetian blinds and canework seats. The Isthmus' most effective means

of mass transit, the railroad carries a good share of the freight moving be- tween Colon and Panama—about evenly

divided among the Canal, U.S. military

installations in the Zone, and Panama—

and handles most of the container cargo between the two ports. In fiscal year

1975, it transported 779,700 passengers and 213,000 tons of freight.

From the early 1920s until 1951,

railroad headquarters were at Balboa

Heights. But with the incorporation of the Panama Canal Company and the consequent merging of the Panama

Railroad and the Panama Canal, the

railroad became one of five divisions of the Transportation and Terminals Bureau and moved its headquarters back

to the Atlantic side, where it started 126 vears ago. The visitor to Colon today can view,

between the oceanfront Washington

Hotel and the first Episcopal church

in Latin America (built with the help

of the Panama Railroad), a memorial

to the founders of the railroad. And an

unobtrusive brass plaque at Balboa

Heights station acknowledges Totten's work. But perhaps the best monument to those who accomplished the most daring

engineering feat of the mid-1800s

stands, overlooked, in the midst of the Canal works. Close beside the bridge on the road

leading from Gaillard Highway to Miraflores Locks, not far from the southern end of the railroad tunnel, stands one

last remnant of the original Panama

Railroad: a stone bridge built around

1855. It once spanned the Dominica

River, the channel of which lay where

the Miraflores Power Plant now stands. The Panama American reported in 1930 that A. E. Meigs of Pedro Miguel had had the stonework repaired

and the brush cleared away. In the 46 years since then the jungle has

again encroached, and the water pouring over Miraflores Spillway has eroded

the bridge at its base. Without Meigs'

work, perhaps there would be nothing

to see at all. Here, beside the great locks and the dam that holds back the waters of Miraflores Lake, one can contemplate in solitude the last vestige of the world's

first transcontinental railway and pay

silent tribute to the men whose blood,

sweat, toil and tears marked every

inch of the road that made it possible

to realize the dream of centuries—the Panama Canal.

Old 299, an American locomotive engine dating from 1906, has been enshrined at Balboa Heights Railroad Station in tribute to the men and engines

tliat performed lieroically during railroad and Canal construction days.

Glimpses of the Canal are of little interest

tn this young passenger, who takes

tidi untage of Iter reclining seat to nap.

16 Spring 1976
Brawn and brains

built the Canal

... but it takes many

skills to run it

By Willie K. Friar

Workers, headed for their fobs in tlie Cut, walk down the "big stairway" in 1911. Coming down was easy hut climbing the 154 steps after a 10-hour day was a formidable cfiallenge.

^LIVEABLE ENVIRONMENT

jf"V created by modern technology

and premium pay have made the current Alaska pipeline project popular

as well as practical. But in the early

days of the American effort to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama,

the only incentive that could be

offered was good wages. The environment was a formidable

obstacle to recruiting workers. Dis- cussing this problem, some years later, Chief Engineer John F. Stevens, who

was responsible for changing living conditions on the Isthmus said, "Colon

at the northern, and Panama at the southern terminus of the Canal, were, up to 1907, two of the most

forbidding, dirty, unhealthy places on

earth." With the discouraging news of disease and death being printed in most of the newspapers in the United

States, recruiting labor was a difficult task and there was no surplus labor in the Republic of Panama. The population was sparse and during the entire construction period, Panama supplied

only 357 workers.

Laborers came from many

lands to work on the

"big job" in steaming

jungle, tropical sun

and pouring rain

Since the United States was not only

constructing a canal but providing all auxiliary sendees ordinarily available from other sources, an enormous amount of labor was required. The

United States had to conduct the Government of the Canal Zone, create

fire and police departments, a department of schools, construct and operate

hospitals, commissaries and hotels, run the Panama Railroad, and provide

all other services that would be

required in a community in the United

States. Firemen, policemen, cooks, stewards,

nurses, doctors and all types of skilled and unskilled laborers had to be

imported to perform these functions. With no surplus of skilled labor

available in Central and South

America, it was recognized that most

of the foremen, and the higher grades

of skilled labor would have to come

from the United States.

The Panama Canal Review 17
A diverse labor force but great esprit de corps

Attractive pay was offered and

large numbers of Americans were

brought down in 1905. But the living

conditions were so bad that manv

went back home. By 1908, due to the

success of sanitation efforts and

building of adequate quarters, more

Americans came and stayed. During

the construction period, the number

of Americans employed at any

one time averaged more than 5,000.

Additional sources of labor had to be found, however, and recruiters fanned out over the world. The

American work force was soon supplemented bv laborers from many

other countries including Spain,

France, Italv, India, Germany, Greece,

Armenia, China, Russia, Cuba, Costa Rica and Colombia.

The work force increased from

1,000 in 1904 to over 30,000 in 1907. Considering the problems of those

davs, it is easy to appreciate the

difficult task of recruiting and

organizing a work force of over 30,000 men in less than 3 years. Bv 1914, the work force had

reached 45,107. Taking into consideration the size and type of work

performed as well as the diversity of the work force, one of the greatest

triumphs was the creating of an

enthusiastic esprit de corps. Writing about the Canal workers in 1916, Maj. R. E. Wood, who was with

the Canal Quartermaster's Department

from 1905-15, said: "The Canal will alwavs remain a material monument

from a construction and engineering

standpoint; it will also stand as a monument in the minds and hearts of the employees who worked on it during

the construction period—a monument

no less enduring than its physical

presence. Every wage earner, whether

a high salaried superintendent or

division head, or the lowest paid

laborer, was given a chance in every

sense of the term, and was able to earn more than his living expenses. The

handling of the working force during

the construction of the Canal will always stand as a model of an intelli- gent, just, and liberal treatment of

labor." D. T. Lawson, one of the construction day employees who came to the Isthmus in 1906, wrote proudly in

later years, "Nationals of every tribe,

race and color, from all parts of the

world, contributed to the building of the great waterway."

But after conditions had improved,

Government red tape and strict personnel regulations, including

thorough medical examinations, still presented a problem in recruiting

skilled laborers. A story, told about the 1905 Civil Service Commission at a meeting of engineers in Chicago, was typical of the problems.

According to the storv, in the early

davs, boilermakers were badlv needed,

and a request for 20 was made in the

regular way. Some time passed and

the following cables passed between

the Isthmus and Washington:

"Why have you not sent boiler- makers, as per my cable?" The reply came back. "Fortv applicants examined. All failed account of defective hearing."

From the Isthmus to Washington, "Never knew of good boilermakers

that could hear. Send twenty of the deaf applicants as soon as possible." But as health and organizational

difficulties were overcome, the work

force became stable and there was a

certain sadness felt by many laborers the dav the Canal opened. As the first ship transited, one man, recalling the

esprit de corps of the construction

davs said rather wistfully, "I would

almost like to see it filled up so we

could start all over again."

The SS "Ancon" arrives at Cristobal with 1,500 laborers from Barbados in 1909.

18 Spring 1976
East Indian laborers, wearing tlieir native turbans, line up for paychecks in Balboa in 1913.

* W^ «

Spanish workers remove tracks from Culebra (now Gaillard) Cut in 1913

before water is let into the Canal prism.

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'

Fumigation gangs, which required large numbers of laborers, armed with mops, brooms,

buckets, and ladders prepare for work in Panama in the early days of the United States effort to rid the Isthmus of yellow fever and malaria.

Made possible by

the sweat of

thousands of laborers

and the far-sighted

vision of great

engineers, the Panama

Canal owes its efficient

operation to carefully

trained competent

personnel

As traffic and size of ships increased over the years, the Canal became a complex operation with 1,754 occupational designations. The onlv other

U.S. Government agencv having a

greater range of jobs is the Department of Defense. On the following

pages, illustrating the diverse occupations, are some of the more than

14,000 employees who operate the Canal today. As in the construction-day

work force, many nationalities are represented. Occupations of employees shown are:

First row—Bureau director, secretarystenographer, special assistant to bureau director, Canal pilot, secretary, police officer, audiovisual specialist,

operating room nurse, linehandler. Second row—Administrative officer, firetruck driver, veterinary aid, pool

guard, electrician, painter, civil engineer, attorney, Canal Zone guide.

Third row—Pharmacist, systems ac- countant, statistical draftsman, pro- gramer, clerk typist, boatman, custodian, gynecologist, locks helper.

Fourth row—Rigger, medical technician, security guard, messman, schoolteacher, motor launch operator, machinist diver, police private, supervi- sory mechanic.

Fifth row—Linehandler, budget analyst, civil engineer, mechanic leader,

office supervisor, tugmaster, mechanical

engineering technician, control house

operator, community relations assistant. Sixth row—Towing locomotive operator, boatman, welder, launch captain.

receptionist, chauffeur, translator, cus- todian foreman, radiologist.

The Panama Canal Review 19

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A view from the bridge

1914-1976

sixty-two years of

Panama Canal piloting

Senior pilot Capt. L. S. Hart, at jar right of the bridgewing of the "Zannis Michalos,"

concentrates on the job as the supership enters Pedro Miguel Locks, while

Capt. S. Kalogeras, master of the ship, and anotlier officer observe the transit.

22

By Capt. Norman A. Werner

Spring 1976
SINCE THE PANAMA CANAL

opened to world commerce 62

years ago the ships that have transited and the men who took them through

have played a significant role in the maritime history and progress of the United States. This is a look at the evolution of the Canal pilot force and a review of some of the over half-million ships that have been piloted from ocean to ocean

since 1914. The controversy leading up to the

first official Canal transit was significant. Col. George Goethals, Chief Engineer and Governor of the Canal Zone,

had planned as early as 1911 that pilots

would board vessels for transit as soon

as they entered Canal waters and steam them up to the locks approach walls where they would then be moored.

When safely alongside the locks and

made fast by cables from towing loco- motives, two locks employees would

board the ships, one to direct the lock- age from the navigation bridge, the

other to stand by in the engine room. The locks employees, who were basically skilled mechanics, were to lock

the ship through without the use of the

ship's engines. This practice was based on barge-canal ideas used on the

Mississippi River. Capt. Hugh S. Rodman, the first Marine Superintendent of the Panama

Canal and a naval officer, voiced strong

opposition to the proposed plan. He

objected to pilots surrendering control

of the ships to unlicensed "landsmen"

who had no experience in shiphandling.

Rodman stated that the planned concept would lead to "delay, confusion,

and danger." He wanted to speed up

the operation by eliminating the mooring procedure and allow ships to use

their engines while moving through the

locks with the locomotives serving as "traveling capstans" alongside the ships.

Although Rodman persisted in his opposition to the proposed lockage plan

the first Canal regulations provided for locks personnel to lock the ships

through.

Shortly before the scheduled official opening of the Canal, the Secretary of War ordered that a trial transit be

made. The ship that made the transit was the Panama Railroad vessel SS

Cristobal measuring 489.5' x 58' beam.

The Cristobal was a twin-screw steam

ship of 9,606 gross tons. Her draft during this trial run was 25 feet. On board was Dr. Richard H.

Whitehead, a doctor of engineering,

inventor, economist, author, and scholar,

in charge of the transit on August 3, 1914. On this test transit the lock force, as shiphandlers, did not prove satisfactory. At Gatun Locks, the current caused by the mixing of the heavier

salt water and the less dense fresh water coming out of the chamber,

caused the Cristobal to take an uncontrollable sheer and an electric towing locomotive burned out a motor. This current reaches a maximum velocity of 4 knots at the sea entrances of Miraflores Locks as well as Gatun. At Pedro Miguel Locks, one of the

cables from the locomotives parted and

it appeared that the ship would collide with the lock gates before it could be

stopped. Goethals witnessed the in- cident at Pedro Miguel and was conCompetent personnel and

finely attuned procedures

keep the (anal

operating efficiently

vinced that competent mariners should

take over control of the towing and

handling of ships inside the locks. Rodman got his pilot force of experienced mariners. The original pilot force was divided

into two groups, locks pilots and lake (channel) pilots. The more experienced locks pilot reported to the locks and went out to meet the approaching

ship by skiff. He then relieved the channel pilot and maneuvered the ship

in and through the locks. Whereupon

he was in turn relieved by the channel

pilot who navigated to the next locks. This process was discontinued in 1920

to reduce the number of pilots needed.

1914—August 15. The SS Ancon has

been gaily rigged for the occasion. Flags of all nations were hauled to the wind to mark the international aspect

of the event. Capt. John A. Constantine, decked

out in a high collar cream-colored Palm

Beach cloth uniform with brass buttons and a stiff cap with the word "pilot"

embossed on it, ordered the mooring

lines to be singled up in preparation

for sailing from Pier 9 at Cristobal. Constantine has the distinction of being not only the first Panama Canal

pilot but also the most famous—

a

legend in his own time.

Stroking his handle-bar moustache, at 7:10 a.m., Constantine ordered the re- maining lines cast off, thus commencing

the historic first official transit that opened the Panama Canal to world commerce. Instead of heading directly for Gatun Locks, the Ancon turned

north and went out to the Adantic

entrance so as to include the entire length of the Canal in the first transit. The SS Ancon took 9 hours and 40

minutes to reach the end of the Pacific channel. Thousands of construction era workers and their families cheered as the ship steamed by the townsites along

the banks of the Canal.

Constantine, who had emigrated to the United States from his native Greece, had sailed extensively for a number of years before coming to work

for the French Interoceanic Canal Company as a harbor pilot. When the U.S. Government formed the Isthmian Canal

Commission in 1905, Constantine was

appointed master of the steam crane- boat LaValley.

1919-July 24. The U.S.S. New

Mexico (600\97') is secure in the lower chamber of Gatun Locks with

cables attached from eight electric towing locomotives. She is part of the

Pacific naval fleet returning to San

Diego, California after World War I. The fleet is under the command of Hugh S. Rodman-by then an admiralwho had been transferred from Canal

Zone duty in 1915. He specifically

requested that Constantine be the pilot

of his flag ship, the dreadnaught New

Mexico, during Canal transit. There were 30 ships in the Pacific fleet and

lined up stem to stern they would

stretch more than 2Y2 miles. The destroyers were locked up in two ranks of three in each chamber. One pilot was

in charge of each group of three

destroyers. In 1919 there were 27 pilots working on the Panama Canal. During the 5

years of operation the fame of the Canal and the reputation of the pilots

had been well established throughout

the world wherever ship masters got

together to spin sea stories. Constantine, or "Capt. John" as he was affec- tionately called, was known for his skill

as a ship handler as well as for his congenial "pilot house manner." He once told a pilot-in-training who

was obviously over speed with the ship

he was maneuvering, "Son, if you're in a big hurry to get this vessel alongside,

Guest writer Norman A. Werner

has been a pilot on the Panama Canal for 8 years.

The Panama Canal Review 23
Above:

The SS "Cristobal' passes through Gatun Locks on a trial transit, August 3, 1914, to test procedures prior

to tlw official opening of the waterway.

Below: The SS "Ancon," with

Capt. John A. Constantine as pilot, moves through Caillard Cut, August 15, 1914, officially opening the waterway. (The small tugboat is escorting the "Ancon" and

is not made fast to the ship.)

Below right: The U.S.S. "New Jersey" is shown at Pedro Miguel Locks during her last transit of the Canal on June 4, 1968. With a length of 800 feet and a 108-foot beam, the "New Jersey" and

Iter sister ships are the widest vessels

to transit tlw waterway.

then, I would advise you to go very

slow." This has become a classic phrase

in the vernacular of professional ship

handlers. Constantine was injured while boarding the Ionic on January 21, 1929

when a pilot launch crushed both his feet against the side of the ship. He

was 80 years old at the time and

had received special dispensation from

the Government to continue working

beyond the mandatory retirement age. He died in 1930.

In 1943 a WW II Liberty class ship was named for him. This is an honor

bestowed posthumously upon distin- guished Americans and he was the only

ship pilot to receive such a distinction. 1932-April 1. The roaring 20's had

been reduced to a whisper by the econ- omic reality of the depression. But not everyone was feeling the pinch. The

well-to-do could book passage on the quadruple screw Canadian Pacific flag

Locks personnel were

used as shiphandlers

on trial transit in 1914

ship Empress of Britain (733'x 98') and

see the Panama Canal from their living room windows.

Capt. W. J. H. Peterson was on the bridge as she increased speed to ex- peditiously cover the 21 miles of Gatun

Lake. Peterson was well known to the

ship's master, Capt. Latta, who specifically requested his services whenever

the Empress transited. Frequently, the

entire transit was made without tug

boat assistance. Peterson brought a broad maritime

background with him when he became

a Canal pilot in 1918. He had been a master on Dollar Line passenger ships. As master of a merchant ship at sea a man develops great confidence in his judgment. His decision can mean the

difference between a ship and her crew

surviving or sinking. Such autonomous

responsibility makes a mariner ir- reverently independent and suspicious

of change. These characteristics transfer well to piloting on the Panama Canal. A Canal pilot must have quick and

true judgment plus decision making

abilities. The confined nature of the Canal demands not only the judgment

of channel and harbor pilots but also an extraordinary degree of timing skill to maintain a consistent flow of ships

24 Spring 1976
into and out of the massive concrete and steel locks without incident. Experience is the basic requirement of a

successful pilot. 1934-January 21. Not all transits of the Canal are routine. At 1:15 p.m.

this day in history Capt. W. J. Kennedy

was piloting the 769-ton Dutch vessel Brion north in Gatun Anchorage. As

the ship came into the anchorage a

five degree list to port developed which

the ships crew was unable to correct.

It was later learned that a crew member had accidentally opened the sea valves allowing water to enter the hull. As the vessel continued to sink, Ken- nedy maneuvered the Brion to the east- ward out of the anchorage. When it was apparent she could not be saved,

captain, crew, and pilot climbed into the life boat and rowed ashore. The

Brion sank in 13 fathoms of water 150

feet from the bank. The railroad tracks ran adjacent to the lake at this point

so once ashore Kennedy flagged down

the 4:40 p.m. train out of Colon and

went home. At the inquiry the following day the

pilot was asked why he had not maneuvered the sinking ship to the west- ward behind Guarapo (Navy) Island where a spoil area had already been

established. His sense of humor, getting the better of him, the pilot answered,

"Had I gone westward with the ship,

I would have missed my train." The Brion remains today where Ken- nedy left it. It is now used as a diving

school. The first divers to visit it were

the boys in the Gatun townsite diving

for it's cargo of ivory nuts. The boys

involved were easily recognizable to

their school mates as the fuel oil from

the ruptured vessel had permeated their hair which had to be shaved off. 1938-October 10. The 100,000th

transit of the Panama Canal is logged,

the SS Steel Export (424'x56') oper- ated by Isthmian Steam Ship Lines. Capt. R. H. Wyle navigates into Bohio

Turn, the sharpest in Gatun Lake, with

the propeller churning the water to foam as the bow wave curls away. No maritime port, anywhere in the

world, guarantees the safety of a vessel maneuvering in its waters to the same

degree as the Panama Canal organization. Management relies on the ability,

judgment, and good seamanship of its

pilot force as part of a transit team

to help protect it from the financial

liability that goes with this guarantee.

Originally, the Panama Canal Company had accepted liability for it's employees and equipment only while a ship was in the locks. The pilot func-

"CAPTAIN JOHN

IV.
flS^s,

Control pilot Capt. L. S. Hart guides tlie "Zannis Michalos," which is 738 feet long and 105.8 feet wide, into Miraftores Locks. The large radio in his right hand

is used for communication with assisting tugs and towing locomotives on the lock walls. Tlie small radio is for contact with tlie three other pilots aboard, two of whom are

visible on the platforms rigged on the foncard portion of the ship.

At left: Bow pilot Capt. G. R. Cooper is seen on tlie platform and on the deck as the ship is guided into the locks. His function is to relay information to the control pilot.

Left below:

Control pilot Capt. L. S. Hart (seated) directs the transit from the navigation bridge.

At right: The "Verrazano Bridge," which is 867 feet by 105.6, leaves Pedro Miguel Locks. Arrow marks position of the bow pilot who is seen close-up below.

26 Spring 1976
1956-December 12. "Its Cotton,

Says Billion-Ton Captain" read the banner headlines in the Panama-American newspaper. The SS Edward

Luckenbach (498'x 69') transported the

billionth ton of cargo to pass through

the Canal since it was opened in 1914. Capt. Kenneth Roscoe was the Canal

pilot on board the 7,870 gross ton

freighter as she reduced speed passing

the dredging headquarters in Gamboa

and the mouth of the Chagres River. Roscoe, a native of Boston, Mass., graduated from Massachusetts Maritime

Academy in 1930. He sailed as master

with American-Hawaiian Line out of San Francisco, Calif., before coming to the Isthmus to take on the challenge

of the Panama Canal.

Pilots navigate the Canal, north or

southbound, depending on the number

of ships that arrive at either terminal

for transit. During the course of each

transit a ship will be affected by wind,

current, hydraulic suction, and other

forces. The pilot learns through many

transits how to compensate for these

factors. 1957-December 17. The dry bulk

carrier Cosmic (744'x 101') making

it's first transit enters Gaillard Cut. The

unique feature of the Cosmic was the

navigation bridge which was well aft, leaving the remainder of the ship

measuring the length of two football

fields put end to end ahead of the

bridge.

Capt. C. S. Townshend was the first control pilot of this first large "stem winder" (as bridge-aft vessels have

As a large vessel

approaches, moves

through and leaves

the locks, the

pilot's role is

particularly important

come to be known). He instructed that a temporary cat-walk be constructed athwartships in the forward part of the

vessel prior to transit. During the lock- age at Gatun, he conned from this forward position assisted by three additional pilots, two stationed on the ex- tremities of the navigation bridge.

Capt. C. G. Didrickson, who was the second control pilot, tried it from the navigation bridge aft during the de- scending lockage at Pedro Miguel and

Miraflores Locks. Eventually all control

pilots on "stem winders" worked from

the navigation bridge but forward temporary platforms are still required for

assisting pilots on stem winders over 100 feet in beam.

The Panama Canal Review 27
A ship transits with the help of the

extt mil < lighting which was installed along the banks of Caillard Cut.

It is a different Canal at night as any pilot or ship's master will tell you.

ijV,

Capt. Robert Rennie sits on top of the amphibious jeep "Tortuga" as it approaches Pedro Miguel Locks in 1955.

Pilots arc accustomed to coping with

the unusual as well as the conventional transit.

Ships such as the Cosmic, especially

when deeply loaded require a pilot's

full concentration when navigating

Gaillard Cut. This part of the Canal

(originally called Culebra Cut which is Spanish for snake), was chiseled out

of the rock on the Continental Divide.

Until 1971 the cut was 300 feet wide.

When a large and unwieldy vessel of over 100-foot beam moves in such

a confined waterway, asymetrical hydrodynamic forces are created. The

moving ship will actually cause the sur- face water level on one side to be

higher than the other. This creates a

force that will cause the ship to sheer

off course. To counter this, the pilot must order the use of the ships rudder

and engines with unerring precision.

A system of securing a tug boat

astern with a two-line bridle was de- veloped at the David Taylor Model

Basin in Carderock, Md., expressly for ships navigating Gaillard Cut. This provides a "second rudder" and has proven

quite successful.

Even smaller ships that are allowed

to meet in the restricted confines of the Cut create an interaction. Again

the experienced pilot will counter the sheer with precisely the proper degree

of rudder angle and engine power. When the Cut was 300 feet wide

the standard method of meeting an- other ship was to steam head on to the approaching vessel until both ships were about one ship length apart. At

this point both pilots would order the rudder put to the right on their re- spective ships. As the bows of the two ships swung to starboard a cushion

of water built up between the ships

allowing them to pass without collid- ing. Needless to say this maneuver re- quired absolute precision and strong

nerves. Ship masters who bring their vessels

to the Canal for the first time are understandably apprehensive as they

witness the margin of clearance re- duced from miles such as it is in the open ocean to feet as it is in the Canal. One pilot couldn't resist the temptation of having fun with a particularly nervous and obviously new skipper.

The situation was a meeting of two

vessels in the Cut as described before. As the two 10,000 ton ships ap- proached each other dead on, the new

skipper's pacing increased. When the two ships were about to reach the

point when the maneuver to starboard was called for, the pilot, turning to the skipper took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and asked "Captain, my eyes

aren't so good anymore. Can you tell me if you see a ship ahead?"

Another problem that is particularly

acute in the Cut is the accumulation of fog (pea soup variety) at night during

the rainy season. On the average, ships are tied up for fog 65 nights a year. 1962-September 16. With then Pres- ident of Panama Roberto F. Chiari and

Canal Zone Gov. Robert J. Fleming as special guests, the nuclear powered

ship NS Savannah (595'x78') enters the "jaws" at Pedro Miguel Locks. The

entrance to the locks chamber is termed the jaws because the slightest error here, either human or mechanical, can result in the ship's hull being

ripped open if it strikes the concrete. Capt. C. V. Torstenson is the pilot

during this maiden transit. He was

sent to the United States to go on

board the Savannah during her sea

trials to determine what special pre- cautions would be necessary when the

first atomic powered merchant ship

transited. 1970—June 2. The ore carrier Oswego Venture (760'x 102') carries the 2-billionth ton of cargo through.

Unlike the Edward Luchenback, which

made history when it carried the bil- lionth ton 13 years earlier, no ceremony

accompanied this transit. It was busi- ness as usual for control pilots Capts.

E. G. Evans and W. Cronin who were unaware of the significance of their

transit. 1972-April 19. The Tokyo Bay

(950'x 106') departs Pedro Miguel and

glides effortlessly across Miraflores Lake. The first of the super container

ships that have come to be called "Panamax" was guided by Capts. A. L. Wilder and T. W. Gove, control pilots.

The Panamax designation is applied

ONCE THE LOCKS DWARFED THE SHIPS, NOW

THE SHIPS DWARF THE LOCKS-Four destroyers move

through Pedro Miguel with space to spare in 1925 while today,

the "Kowloon Bay," a regular customer, which is 950 feet long and 106 feet in the beam, squeezes through.

28 Spring 1976
to ships designed to take maximum

advantage of the limiting dimensions of the locks. Originally, the Canal was designed

with extra capacity and the locks dwarfed the ships of that era. Fiftyeight years later it would be the ships

that dwarfed the locks. By now the Canal has gone to a 24-hour operation starting January 1, 1963. Vessels had transited at night as early as 1940 on a selective basis. This was made possible by the installation of bank lighting in the Cut. In 1964 pilots

gave up using hand signals to the loco- motives as new radios permitted pilots

to communicate with locks, tugs, and

marine traffic coordinators. And the

original electric towing locomotives

have been replaced by more versatile machines.

1974—May 8. The Pennsylvania

Getty (799'x 105') awaits the gates to swing open in Miraflores Locks. She is en route from Hampton Roads, Va. to Japan with 51,686 tons of coal. The

Getty is the 400,000th ocean going

vessel to transit. Capts. F. D. Saunders

and T. W. Gove are the pilots. Seventeen years earlier, Saunders took the 200,000th commercial vessel through

the waterway. That ship was the Santa Mercedes (459'x63') operated by

Grace Line. It took 43 years of Canal

operation before the 200,000th ship to

transit and about half as long for the second 200,000th transit. 1976—July 4. More and bigger ships create greater demands on the skill of the pilots. In 1975 reported mechanical

failures aboard transiting vessels aver- aged 28 a month. It is during these

unforeseen emergencies that a pilot must frequently utilize all the knowledge and experience at his command

to avoid disaster. A dip into the pool of statistics in- dicates other significant Canal transit marks:

Fastest transit ocean to ocean: Ondine (456'x55') 4 hours and

27 minutes on September 30,

1961, piloted by Capt. John F. Campbell.

Fastest transit locks to locks: Brunskappel (446'x55') 3 hours

53 minutes from entering Miraflores Locks to clearing Gatun

Locks on December 30, 1968,

piloted by Capt. Robert Rowe.

Most transits in a calendar year: 15,523 in 1970

Most transits started

in a day:

65 on February 29, 1968. Largest ship:

San Juan Prospector (975'x 106') on April 6, 1973, piloted by

Capts. C. J. Gundersen and

W. Hopkins.

Greatest volume of cargo

in a ship:

61,078 long tons on the Melodic on May 29, 1973, control pilots A. T. Wilder and J. W. Chamberlain. Largest passenger ship:

Queen Elizabeth II, March 25,

1975, control pilots Robert F. Boyd and Furman D. Saunders.

The largest commercial ship to transit, the "San Juan Prospector"

(now the "Marcona Prospector"), with a

length of 975 feet and a beam of 106 feet, is a tight fit in the 1,000 by 110 feet lock chamber at Miraflores. Since the bridge is amidships, she required only 2 pilots. She transited in ballast in April 1973

and paid $40,951.44 in tolls.

Wearing a pith helmet as protection

against the tropical sun, a

Canal pilot boards a launch and heads

for home after a transit.

SLIDES AND SUPERSHIPS MAKE TRANSITING THE CUT A COMPLEX OPERATION-This unusual

scene in Gaillard Cut was photographed in 1923 when southbound ships were moored on the left bank, while northbound ships passed in close formation following a slide. At right below: The "Tokyo Bay," one of the

largest ships to transit, moves through Gaillard Cut with the help of one tug which is attached to the stern by a bridle to act as a second rudder. The tug alicad of the "Tokyo Bay" is escorting the vessel and cotdd be made fast to the ship in an emergency.

The Panama Canal Review 29
Above left: Seventh grade art teacher Bill Koons gives instructions to Kimherly Montgomery how best to combine the mola art form with her Bicentennial design.

Above right: Although painted on paper, these colorful molas, with patriotic motifs, look very much like the cloth ones.

Lower left: Barry Novack works on an eagle design.

Lower right: Two Cuna women are wearing molas, sitting on molas,

and surrounded by molas as they stitch up some new molas at Miraflores Locks.

Dicentennial

nwa*

30 Spring 1976
T[EY MAY NOT KNOW IT, but the Cuna Indians of the San

Mas Islands have made a colorful contribution to a Curundu Junior High

School bicentennial project.

The unique art form of the Cuna

culture—the mola—inspired art teacher

Bill Koons and his enthusiastic seventh

grade students to paint a series of

patriotic posters depicting such stand- ard symbols of grass roots Americana

as eagles, stars and stripes, liberty bells and, even a hamburger.

Imitating the intricate designs and

bright colors favored by the Cuna women in their cotton cloth "cutwork

stitcherv" the Curundu students are creating their own molas on manila

paper. Using real molas as visual aids, Koons and his students first discussed

the special qualities of the Cuna art and the characteristics that make it unique. The abundant use of black, orange and red; the special feeling for beautiful shapes and outlines and artful use of space and attention to detail. Once having established the theme

and the guidelines, Koons gave the stu- dents a free hand to create, with some

very imaginative results. As an art form exclusive to Panama,

molas are popular souvenir items among

tourists. Thev are also widely used as wall hangings, sewn on shirts, skirts and

jackets or used to make items of cloth- ing and accessories ranging from tote bags to bikinis. Clubs and fraternal or- ganizations often have their seals or emblems copied and made into molas

bv the skillful Cuna women. Made basically to be worn on fronts and backs of their own blouses, the

brightlv colored molas are now pro- duced by the San Bias women in large

quantities and sold at almost every

curio shop and department store on the Isthmus—even outside the entrance to Miraflores Locks. Cuna girls are taught the art of mola

making at an early age. They cut out

intricate designs on several layers of contrasting colored cloth that have been sewn together. After cutting the design

into each laver so that the contrasting

color underneath it creates the desired

contour, the edges are carefully folded under and sewn with tiny stitches. The paper molas created by the Curundu students show that the distinc- tive design techniques can be adapted

to depict a great variety of artistic- expressions, reflecting the ingenuity,

creative ability and often the mood of the mola maker.

Canal £,cne ^enc tchecnen >ck< iom>

Operation Sail 76

AS A PARTICIPANT IN THE BICENTENNIAL SALUTE TO THE

y% maritime heritage of the United States, the Canal Zone Sea Explorer

schooner Chief Aj>takisic will sail up the Hudson River, July 4 along with more than 100 other sailing vessels.

Plans are for the President of the United States to review the vessels from the deck of an aircraft carrier as thev enter New York Harbor.

The two-masted vessel, which has a crew of Canal Zone Sea Explorers

and adult volunteers, will join "Operation Sail '76," one of the major events

of the Bicentennial. More than 25 to 30 of the few remaining tall-masted

sailing ships and approximately 100 smaller sail training ships and sailing

yachts will come to the United States for the event.

Chief Aptakisie will compete with these vessels in a race from Bermuda

to Newport, R.I. and from there will sail to New York for the spectacular

parade up the Hudson River to George Washington Bridge on July 4.

After the celebrations in New York, Chief Aptakisie will begin her return vovage to the Canal Zone, visiting enroute several Bicentennial "Operation

Sail '76" host cities.

Following completion of her 12,000 mile voyage, the 53-foot schooner,

which was refurbished and outfitted through the financial efforts of Canal

Zone Project Windjammer Inc. '76, will be used locally by Sea Explorers

for instruction in sailing.

^rnmm '

Tlie "Chief Aptakisie" attracts the interest of the crew of a transiting ship

as she sails under the Thatcher Ferry Bridge which spans tlie Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal at Balboa.

The Panama Canal Review 31
Wen Dug the Canal

...but women played a vital role

THERE WERE THOSE WHO

contended that building the Pan- ama Canal was a man's job. The Isth- mus was no place for a woman. The men could come and live in tents and

rough it and when the job was done,

in 5 or 10 years, they could pack their grips and go back to their wives and

children. Although the First Canal Commission discouraged American women from

coming to the Isthmus, it was soon

realized that it was impossible to keep

the men here without them. In the first 2 years of the construction, turnover was so great among the foremen, subordinate engineers, and skilled crafts- men that it was impossible to organize an efficient work force. After a few months on the Isthmus,

many of the American men became dis- enchanted and lost interest in their work. There was none of the excite- ment of the city and they found the energy-sapping heat, the lack of women

and social life, and the dense steaming

jungle demoralizing.

Complaints and murmurs of discontent were heard among laborers. Boldlv

asserting their disgruntlement, a group

of West Indian workers held a sitdown

strike announcing, "No women, no

work." About that time American men

made it known that they too were

ready to do some "sitdowning" for the same reason. Commission officials soon were convinced that workers needed a

normal social life, and changing the

policy, hired more married men and

encouraged bachelors to marry.

In those early days of chaos and confusion, women workers were not re- cruited from the United States mainly

due to the lack of suitable housing and

the general rigors of the unhealthy

climate. But a few wives and daughters

of employees were hired. The Isthmian Canal Commission had

obtained more than 2,000 houses from

the French Canal, most of them in poor

condition. These were renovated, boxcars were placed on sidings and fitted out as quarters, and tents put into

service. Anything with four walls, a

roof and a floor was considered living

quarters. Food familiar to Americans was scarce and very expensive. There was no cold storage, no fresh milk and

little meat. There was no potable water;

distilled water was delivered to each

house dailv. When it was not available, water was boiled. As time went on and conditions improved. Canal officials began urging women to come and to stay. They came and with their arrival life in the

construction towns began to change.

Thev were soon influencing the choice

of furnishings, food and clothing sent

to the Isthmus and they not only beautified their own quarters with plants,

but also the public grounds.

Housekeeping was almost as much

of an adventure as digging the Canal.

By Fannie P. Hernandez

There was the constant battle with

ants, roaches and spiders. Fleas came

with the dry season and, at certain times of the year, big black ants swarmed through the houses. The sugar bowl was kept in the ice box. Table

legs were immersed in oil. Cooking was

done on a coal or wood-burning stove, and at times the smoke got very thick. The first woman to be employed bv

the Isthmian Canal Commission was Mary Eugene Hibbard who was ap- pointed Superintendent of Nurses in June 1904, 1 month after the transfer

of the French property to the United

States Government. Two weeks later, she arrived in the Canal Zone with her

commanding officer, Dr. W. C. Gorgas.

Chief, Sanitary Officer, and two trained nurses who were to work with her. Miss Hibbard wrote of her first dav

at the Ancon Hospital: "We founl

about 75 buildings, very scattered. Our

work was to study the situation and find the best possible for the patients who

were to be accommodated." After se- lecting the five buildings she wanted

to use for wards, sanitary conveniences,

diet kitchen, and linen rooms, she

wrote: "The amount of cleaning after 15 years of neglect can be imagined."

She spent 4 years here and a bronze

Above: Women brave the mud to observe

the work in the Cut.

32 Spring 1976
plaque at Gorgas Hospital honors her

as "Nurse, patriot, gentlewoman, humanitarian, friend, who rendered out- standing service to the development of better health in the tropics."

The nurses who came to the Isthmus were highly qualified, having served as Army nr Red Cross nurses in the Spanish-American War, the Russo- Japanese War, or at hospitals in Cuba,

Italv. Switzerland and the Philippines.

Among those who soon followed Miss

Hibbard was |essie M. Murdock, who

later succeeded Miss Hibbard as chief

nurse. Thev were well aware of the problems and challenges that faced them. An obstacle they did not anticipate was the hostility of the French

nursing nuns who had been caring for the sick and understood that the coming of the \merican nurses meant

their departure

An even more serious problem for the new nurses developed from the

religious vows of the nursing nuns, whose intentions were far better than

their training. Surgeon's orders that post-operative patients be fed nothing were ignored bv the nuns who vowed

to "feed the sick and pray for the

dying.' Despite these drawbacks. Miss

Murdock wrote in "Ancon Hospital in 1904 and 1905" in the Society of Chagres Yearbook, 1913, that the nuns were "women of much refinement and

charm" and she praised their heroic

work in the face of great difficulties. She noted that the buildings were

not screened, but each bed had a mosquito bar making it difficult to attend

the patients. The French nuns thought

the netting unattractive and tied it back with bows of ribbon to the dismay

of the American nurses. When yellow

fever patients were admitted, a wire cage was built around the bed. For the

nurses who had night duty, their only

protection from the mosquitoes was

swathing themselves in bandages soaked

in oil of citronella. Earlv in December of that first year,

as yellow fever and other forms of

sickness became more prevalent, almost causing panic, she wrote: "Had we

allowed ourselves to do so, we would

have lost heart completely, for death

seemed to dominate the situation. But

the unselfishness and splendid administrative skill by which our work was

arranged made everyone feel that we

too must do our work courageously,

and in the trying days when one of our number was stricken, no one showed the white feather but all stood

faithfully to their tasks." Ada Jane Nice, one of those valiant women on the

Ancon Hospital staff, was the first nurse to die on the Isthmus. She was

from Riegelsville, Pa.

In closing her account of those early

days al Ancon, Miss Murdock wrote,

"lkl ore two years were over we were

surrounded by all the modern comforts

and conveniences. Telephones buzzed,

electric lights were flashed on, and we

recognized ourselves as onlv a part of an ideal community. It would be hard

for anyone today to believe that Ancon

had ever gone through a pioneer stage. We are glad to have had a hand in the work of those early days, and although

as women we achieved no distinct celebrity, vet we flatter ourselves that we plaved an important part in the building of the Canal."

In addition to the nurses, a few women were employed as teachers. Most were wives or daughters of employees. Feminists today would wince

M I*' It's not an easy

work. Sometimes

it's rough on

the men and

a little rougher

on the women."

at the reference to the employment of women teachers in the 1907 Canal

Record: "On account of their natural

qualifications for the work and because

at the salaries paid it was easier to secure women with requisite experience than men." Their salaries ranged

from $30 to $110 a month.

The first Canal Zone free public

school was opened in June 1906 at Corozal with Emilv Kvte as the teacher. "Line teachers" received the highest

pay. Thev were the "permanent substitutes" who taught wherever there was a temporary vacancy. They also did tutoring wherever they were as- signed. Line teachers put in a 12-hour

dav, leaving for school on the 7 a.m.

train and returning at 7 p.m. Among those substitute teachers was

Winifred Ewing, who celebrated her

90th birthday on the Isthmus last January. Recalling those days, she com- mented on the tropical rains and the

mud in the wet season. But for her,

hardships and inconveniences have

been smoothed out or forgotten with

the passing of the years. Her husband Ora Ewing had come

to work in the Sanitation Department

in November 1906. A year later he

returned to his home in Glensville,

W. Va., married and brought his bride

to the Canal Zone. They were assigned

a little house on the Ancon Hospital

grounds. It had one room with a tiny kitchen and woodburning stove. Though

she had graduated from Normal School

and would have qualified for a full- time teaching job, Mrs. Ewing preferred to devote most of her time to homemaking. Her two daughters were

born in Ancon Hospital. Later, after her husband's death, Mrs. Ewing was

for many years the housemother at Canal Zone College. Reflecting on those

early days, Mrs. Ewing said, "We got

along alright with what we had. It was

no problem. It did rain a lot but it didn't bother us. We became used to

it. I've lived here since 1907 and I've loved it." The early Canal Zone high school was a migratory one, located at various times in Culebra, Cristobal, Gatun and

Ancon. When it was on the Atlantic side, slides on the railroad frequently pre- vented students from the Pacific area from getting home and they would

have to overnight with friends on the Gold Coast. Although high school

pupils were enrolled in the Canal Zone

as earlv as 1907 (before there was a high school) the first high school com- mencement was not until 1911. It was

at Gatun and there were '.wo girls in the class. At that time the Canal Zone

hish school diplomas were signed bv

the President of the L

T nited States. Mamie Elizabeth Miracle, the first American schoolteacher at Empire, was

the principal of the high school at Culebra. She came to the Isthmus in March 1906 to marry Frank W. Miracle, a storekeeper in the Quartermaster

Department at Empire. They had the

distinction of being the first couple to be wed in the Canal Zone after it came

under U.S. control. Reminiscing on what it was like teaching at Gatun School, a construc- tion-dav teacher recalled that during

the rainy season it involved the changing of shoes several times a day.

Teachers would board the train and

before reaching Gatun would change

to boots to walk through the mud to the schoolhouse, then change to shoes and then back to boots when it was

Tiif Panama Canal Review 33
J

»- iy*

^^i

A /ett itomen field important positions

during construction days.

Above left: Christiana Benson, who managed the

hotels at Las Cascadas and Bas Obispo.

Above right: Mamie Elizabeth Miracle, who was

principal of the first high school in the Canal Zone.

Above: The families of Canal laborers wait

hi the free clinic sponsored by

the Cristobal Woman's Club

in the early days.

Above:

Eight pupils and their teaclwr pose on

the porch of the first free public school operated by the municipality of ma in 1904.

"We are glad to have had a hand in the work of those

early days and although as women we achieved no distinct

celebrity, yet we flatter ourselves that we played

an important part in the building of the Canal."

time to go home. It was a bothersome

chore considering the high buttoned

shoes of the day. In 1907, so many were the incon- veniences faced by families in the Canal Zone, President Roosevelt sent Gertrude Beeks, of the Department of Welfare of Government Emplovees of the National Civic Federation, to look

into labor conditions to trv to find out why the men would not stay on the

job. A capable investigator. Miss Beeks

got closer to the American workers than

the officials and they talked frankly

with her without the fear of being

tailed complainers.

Though living conditions were much

improved and quite good compared to those found bv the first workers who

came here. Miss Beeks made a report

to the Isthmian Canal Commission and

the Panama Railroad including such

criticisms as no hot water in the showers; inadequate quarters for about

1,000 men living in boxcars; the exist- ence of bedbugs and vermin; the nurse's dormitory at Colon Hospital where

during rain storms nurses sleeping on

the ocean side got drenched and were known to sleep with umbrellas over them; no adequate supply of fresh vegetables; lack of rain sheds along the Canal for the workers; and a number

of other complaints.

Miss Beeks also found that women

were lonely without the social and cul- tural activities they had enjoyed at home. To remedy the situation, she

recommended that women's clubs be

formed. At her suggestion, Helen Boswell, of the Federation of Women's

Clubs in the United States, was sent

to the Isthmus. During a month-long

visit, she encouraged women to form

clubs affiliated with the Federation.

Nine clubs were formed. Soon, they were holding meetings and finding outlets for their mental and social talents

in club work.

Thev developed home gardens, pro- moted the organization of the Humane

Societv in the Canal Zone, sponsored

home nursing programs and manv other educational and cultural projects. Their

recommendations on community improvements generally brought results.

Construction-day employees used lively imaginations to create a homey atmosphere

within the bare wooden walls of early Canal Zone quarters

as shown In/ this sitting room in a four-family house in Culebra in 1914. The bead curtain and hanging lamp lend a touch of French decor.

34 Spring 1976
"And thev

made it home.

Ah, that's the

point."

Above right: A typical street in Cristobal in 1907

before paving. Despite the mud and

makeshift housing, the women of the Canal Zone created a pleasant

home environment.

Above left: Mrs. Gaillard pours tea for herself and her husband,

Col. David Du Bois Gaillard, uhn directed the work in Culebra Cut, which was renamed in his honor.

Above right:

]. Bucklin Bishop, secretary of the Second Isthmian Canal Commission,

relaxes with his wife and daughter

on the front porch of their quarters.

Family photographs and a doll adorn the walls of this bedroom in family quarters which show exposed studs on the wood siding. (Housing of this type is still in usi today.)

The door with wooden louver inserts and the shuttered window were built-in

:e conditioning" of that era. The French influence is evident in the furniture.

The Panama Canal Review 35
A woman was one of the first swimmers of the Canal. Elaine May Golding,

billed in the local -press as the "champion lady swimmer of America," bypassed the locks and the Cut but swam

most of the Canal in stages between

December 12 and 16 in 1913.

In 1908 the personnel rolls of the Isthmian Canal Commission showed

6,100 American males and 205 American females employed. There were 117

female nurses in the service, 25 women

schoolteachers, and 45 were employed

as copyists, coupon counters, clerks, postal clerks, dietitians, timekeepers,

telegraphers and storekeepers. A total of 18 women were working for the Panama Railroad. Among the few American women

employed in the early days was Flor- ence Williams who came to the Isthmus

in 1906 from Buffalo, N.Y., to live with

her doctor father and her brother who

had come earlier. After living at Empire for about a year, she moved to Gatun and was one of the American women who lived there in tents until the houses were built. She recalls witnessing, in September of 1906, the first cut of Gatun Locks as the steam shovel began excavating at the lock site. A Roosevelt Medal holder, Miss

Williams worked for the Isthmian Canal

Commission from 1907 to 1909 as a telephone operator at Empire. After attending school in the United States,

^^

Viewing the beautiful royal palm lined Prado in Balboa today one would find it

difficult to visualize the Canal Zone as the grim muddy place it was when the first women

arrived to establish horn s. In the foreground is the monument to Gen. George W. Goethals. chief engineer during the construction of the Canal.

In the background is the U.S. built Thatcher Ferry Bridge which spans the Canal.

she returned to the Canal Zone and in 1922 went to work in the Canal's Accounting Division, retiring in 1954. During her manv vears on the Isth- mus, she saw important landmarks

being built in the Ganal Zone. A few

vears ago, looking on as the Balboa

Mrs. Bruce Sanders came in 1910 — - *£y

"tropical rains and mud"

"upside down biscuits"

Club House was being demolished, she

reflected, "I saw it built at Empire,

I remember when it was moved here,

and now it is being torn down.'

The demise of the Tivoli Hotel was

even more disturbing since she had

lived there for more than 17 years fol- lowing her retirement. At 84, she still has happy memories of gala social events, white formal frocks and long

white gloves and voung men in starched white suits and high collars. Then, the

a\ erage ratio of men and young women

ran about 25 voung engineers or other Canal bachelors to each American girl in her late teens or early twenties.

Stories told and recorded by women

Roosevelt Medal Holders who attended

the Theodore Roosevelt Centennial in the Canal Zone in 1958 give a vivid

insight into life in the construction-day towns. Among these historical accounts is one by Mrs. Bruce Sanders, whose husband came to the Isthmus in 1908 to work

as a nurse. She came in 1910, as a

bride, and lived for a few months in Panama City and then moved to a

little house just reclaimed from the

jungle. It was in a settlement called Caimito Mulato, a part of San Pablo on the banks of the Chagres River, so

close to the water that it was possible

to fish off the back porch. There were

30 or 40 houses and no one knew the town existed until some engineers run- ning a line for the Canal discovered it. The house had no ceilings, only a tin roof. Cooking was done on a woodburning stove and old railroad ties were

used for fuel. She remembered that blasting on the Canal played havoc

with cake-baking because the blasts shook the whole house. A cake would

either fall flat or spill out into the bottom of the oven. However, she continued to bake what she called "up

side down biscuits" explaining that the uneven temperature burned the bis- cuits on the bottom and all she had to do was pop them out of the tin, turn them over, and put them back into the oven. She said that the dirt trains ran along the door and always seemed to pass bv at meal time so that cinders

36 Spring 1976
PANAMA CANAL TRAFFIC

Three Quarters Fiscal Year 1976 TRANSITS (Oceangoing Vessels) 1976 1975

Commercial 9,096 10,168

I'.S. Government 75 144 26 6

rota!

I'.S. Govern- ment

Total

TOLLS • $98,723,926

639,723

$99,363,649

9.197 10,318

$105,916,438

1,166,946

$107,083,384

CARGO00 (Oceangoing) Commercial-. 87,541,026 107,167,621

I'.S. Govern- ment 149.386 431,250

TotaL 87,690,412 107,598,871

° Includes tolls on all vessels, oceangoing and small. 00 Cargo figures are in long tons

were a daily item on the family menu. The Sanders moved 13 times that first year. While living at Gorgona, thev were notified on a Monday morning

that they must be out of the house bv

1 o'clock and the next time she saw

the house it was half way down the banks of the excavation. Their next house was on the top of

a hill in Paraiso. What was supposed

to be a "choice house" had two rooms and a small porch where you could

place a rocking chair if you were careful how you turned it. She noted that Paraiso was the only town along the

line that had fresh drinking water. The

first soft drink plant was installed there because of the good water. Recalling their first Christmas on the Isthmus in 1907, Mrs. Steve Calvit re- membered that the men went into the

jungle and cut down an orange tree laden with ripe and green fruit. Thev

set it up in the schoolroom and de- corated it with whatever thev had

available to make it colorful. Among

the few presents distributed was some

guava jelly made by Mrs. Mattie Morrison, who came in 1905. Thev had no

jelly jars and used heavy drinking

glasses. To seal them, they fashioned

tops out of correspondence paper and

dipped them in egg white to make

them stick. Mrs. Calvit, her four daughters and

a nephew, Joe Ebdon, arrived in M.i\

1907, to join her husband and two sons. They were assigned a cottage in Gor- gona much too small for their large

family.

In 1908, when they were assigned a

larger house; it burned down 2 hours

before thev were to move in. "Three

CANAL COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC BY NATIONALITY OF VESSELS

Three Quarters Fiscal Year

1976 1975 1965-69

.Vo. of Tons So. of Tons Avg. So. Avg. tons Nationality transits of cargo transit 1; of cargo transits of cargo Belgian 112 1,114,925 116 954,290 60 160,062

British 977 8,795,841 1,013 10,712,339 1,025 7,554,799

Chilean 131 1,258,778 103 1,224,265 86 572,605

Chinese, N'at'l 88 1,068,683 115 1,476,153 82 615,551

Colombian 150 262,124 1U7 215,958 166 341,884

Cvpriot 81 479,737 186 1,328,858 11 83,457

Danish 208 1,427,620 232 1,745,108 285 1,658,981

Ecuadorian 108 773,402 85 587,527 51 62,551

French 140 802,345 176 1,060,991 162 669,842

German, West 475 2,712,034 558 3,387,423 913 3,182.940

Greek 662 9,827,026 878 13,013,069 369 3,807,322

Italian 192 1,413,061 183 1,261,500 169 1,147,676

Japanese 777 6,821,886 949 8,116,625 679 5,080,587

Liberian 1.299 20,737,442 1,417 26,470,028 1,013 13,657,609

Norwegian 505 6,598,333 641 10,174,947 1,098 10,760,813 Netherlands 239 1,307,573 316 1,401,772 390 1,687,381

Panamanian 690 5,041,871 789 5,611,117 394 1,823.641 Peruvian 182 1,905,547 145 1.484,837 114 548.033

U.S.S.R 154 618,993 130 815,365 46 344.944 Singaporean 65 516,301 56 703.406 N.A N.A. South Korean 69 375,435 90 607,457 23 123,777

Spanish 76 306,499 45 386,893 13 58,014

Swedish 253 2,735,602 260 2,668,527 329 2 151.847 United States 772 5,825,998 819 6,649.544 1,188 6,632,992

All other 691 4,813,970 759 5,109.622 589 2.429.933

Total 9.096 87,541,026 10,168 107,167,621 9,255 65,157,241

TRAFFIC MOVEMENT OVER PRINCIPAL TRADE ROUTES

Three Quarters Fiscal Year

Avg. So.

transits Trade routes—( Large commercial vessels, 300 net tons or over) 1976 1975 1965-69 East coast United States-Asia 2,038 2,279 1,994 Europe—West coast South America 843 889 1,006 East coast United States-West coast South America 894 1,006 1,299

Europe—West coast United States/Canada 652 585 755 Europe-Asia 389 648 157 Europe-Oceania 339 365 308

East coast Canada-Asia 198 229 124

United States IntercoastaK including Hawaii) 292 288 371

East coast South America-Asia 130 196 148 West coast South America-West Indies 235 221 196

All others ^ 3,086 3,462 1,259

Total 9,096 10,168 7,617

MONTHLY COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC AND TOLLS

Vessels of 300 net tons or over— (Fiscal yea»i) Transits Tolls (In thousands of dollars)!

Month 1976 1975 July 1,089 1,219

August 1,039 1,121

September 954 1,095

October 1,045 1,125

November 994 1,086

December 992 1,111 January 1,018 1,142

February 912 1,052

March 1,053 1,217

April 1,142

May 1,209 June 1,090

Total 13,609

1 Before deduction of any operating expenses.

Avg. So.
weeks later," she said, "21 men stood

at the door and the boss said that they were to move us and they did, carrying

everything down one hill, around the

ravine and up onto another hill where

six four-family houses had been completed." In a Star & Herald editorial repro- duced in the Society of the Chagres

Yearbook, 1916-17, S. P. Verner wrote

of the Women Who Made the Canal,

"And then they made it home. Ah,

there's the point. The government might

have build barracks of silver and floored them in gold, it might have put on its hotel tables the vintages of fair champagne and pates of old Strasbourg—but no woman, no home, for God made it so from the beginning of creation, and

ordained it to the end of time."

In an address to the employees of the Isthmian Canal Commission in November 1906, President Roosevelt

said, "It is not an easy work. Mighty

few things that are worth doing are

easv. Sometimes it is rough on the men

and just a little rougher on the women. It has pleased me particularly to see as I have met the wives who have come down here with their husbands,

the wav in which they have turned in

to make the best of everything and to help the men to do their work well." According to personal interviews and

written accounts, the great majority of construction day wives and women emplovees of the Canal in those early days were happy to have lived on the Isth- mus at such a momentous time and to have been a part of the beginning of the Panama Canal. In the words of Mrs.

Sanders, who recently returned to the Canal Zone to visit one of her six chil- dren born here, "Those were the happiest davs. Thev were hard times and we griped and fussed but one did not

give up. If vou didn't have the pioneer

spirit, vou just left." Todav, women constitute approximately 20 percent of the Canal's work

force. In addition to teachers and

nurses and other professions tradi- tionally known as women's jobs, the

Canal's personnel rolls show they are employed as physicians, lawyers, engineers, geologists, police officers, and in other fields formerly considered ex- clusively the realm of men.

At right: Two large vessels move through Pedro Miguel Locks. In the background

is Gaittard Cut where the Canal passes through the Continental Divide.

PRINCIPAL COMMODITIES SHIPPED THROUGH THE CANAL

(All cargo figures in long tons)

Pacific to Atlantic

Three Quarters Fiscal Year

Commodity 1976 Petroleum and products 6,853,973 Manufactures of iron and steel 5,712,344

Ores, various 3,103,628

Lumber and products 2,692,746

Sugar 2,122,835

Food in refrigeration (excluding bananas) 1,327,234 Bananas 1,162,030

Metals, various 959,530

Pulpwood 888,476

Autos, trucks, and accessories 834,712 Coal and coke 704,011

Sulfur 663,785

Molasses 513,419

Wheat 506,702

Fishmeal 493,142

AIlother__ 9,221,687

Total 37,760,254

1975 6,481,248

7,105,478

4,825,365

2,324,180

2,321,764

1,123,227

1,255,725

1,292,352

1,469,171

758,522

1,260,940

895,325

350,925

126,991

669,651

10,029,031

Aug. No. Tons 1965-69 965,491

2,596,337

4,310,699

3,420,981

1,931,141

853,992

953,056

962,231

589,669

64,739

125,745

142,887

276,102

728,618

N.A.

7,664,695

42,289,895 25,586,383

Atlantic to Pacific Three Quarters Fiscal Year

Aug. No. Tons Commodity 1976 1975 1965-69 Coal and coke 12,285,079 19,182,424 7,427,147 Petroleum and rroducts 9,555,594 11,317,715 11,288,969 Corn _ ^ 5,700,928 5,078,538 1,941,988

Soybeans 3,279,574 2,848,263 1,627,549

Phosphate 2,521,079 4,207,327 2,835,271

Wheat 1,987,873 3,394,874 755,964

Sorghum 1,942,080 1,844,267 N.A.

Metal, scrap 1,285,561 1,510,854 1,830,775

Ores, various 1,125,090 1,677,753 1,204,226

Chemicals, unclassified 746,340 681,025 623,947 Manufactures of iron and steel 564,615 1,424,493 1,348,952

Sugar 498,116" 1,155,121 585,849

Fertilizers, unclassified 442,840 956,408 330,670

Salt 348,990 63,057 N.A.

Caustic soda 341,479 440,640 N.A.

All other 7,155,534 9,094,967 7,769,551

Total 49,780,772 64,877,726 39,570,858

CANAL TRANSITS-COMMERCIAL AND U.S. GOVERNMENT

Three Quarters Fiscal Year

1976 1975

Atlantic Pacific

to to Pacific Atlantic Total Total Commercial vessels: Oceangoing 4,576 4,520 9,096 10,168 Small i 300 235 535 572

Total 4.876 4,755 9,631 10,740

U.S. Government vessels: 2 Oceangoing 34 41 75 144 Small' 86 27 113 85

Total _ 120 68 188 229

Total Commercial and

U.S. Government 4,996 4,823 9,819 10,969

Total

9,255 413

67985

764

10,432

1 Vessels under 3(10 net Ions or 500 displacement tons.

-' Vessels on which tolls are credited. Prior to July 1, 1951, Government-operated ships transited

38 Spring 1976
mm.

5} -»-

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out

how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could

have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat

and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short

again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great

devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the

best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and

who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls

who know neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt
I II"- I I I I 1 I. - • IliM M II llll I I KS

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SEEING THE PANAMA CANAL BY AIR

THIS CERTIFIES THAT THE BEARER HAS T.OWN OVER THE ISTHMUS

Or PANAMA IN ONE OF THE SEAPLANES OF ISTHMIAN AIRWAYS, INC.

S2

,

TRANSCONTINENTAL NON-STOP

OCEAN TO OCEAN

IN 30 MINUTES

The Pilot of this flight was BURTEN GROWN BARBER Chief Pilot Transport No 1288 who

,„„ h,s^ . f/7

3/3/J/

CROSSING OF THE ISTMMU3 OY AIR.

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IAMA RAIL ROAD

COMPANY

No. 6 MARCH 6th, 1913

-

1

I,

Seeing the

Canal

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