Excerpt
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): From shipping vessels to cruise liners to luxury yachts, over a million ships have passed through the Isthmus of Panama since its canal opened on August 15, 1914. Spanning a strip of mountainous land between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the canal is a conduit for business and sea power, shortening the trip from New York to San Francisco by nearly 8,000 miles.
The triumph of engineering, man’s harnessing of water and moving of mountains, took over 30 years to complete.
KIM STEENTOFT, Ship captain: It’s a huge achievement they made when they produced 100 years back. If you think about the locks are nearly the same today, and it’s what they built 100 years back, it’s a huge achievement.
GWEN IFILL: The French broke ground on the project in 1881. But soaring costs, engineering problems, and a steep death toll from yellow fever estimated at 22,000 people ended French involvement.
But where the French saw failure, President Theodore Roosevelt saw opportunity, a chance to unlock America’s economic power. In 1903, Panama gained independence from Columbia, with U.S. support. In return for Washington’s backing and recognition, the new government surrendered sovereignty over a portion of the country that would become known as the Canal Zone.
The U.S. officially took over in 1904, but yellow fever, one of the major hurdles to the project’s success, remained. It wasn’t until Dr. Colonel William Gorgas targeted mosquitoes that health officials gained the upper hand.
The U.S. also came up with a new engineering approach, discarding plans for a sea level route, in favor of a series of locks that could lift ships as much as 85 feet through the complex mountain formations, before being lowered again to sea level.
But the massive excavation and construction process was still fraught with danger.
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