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Panama Canal
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Surveying the Canal
A French team completes their survey of Panama. Two years later their government approves Ferdinand de Lesseps' plan for a sea level canal. The cost is estimated to be $240 million. -
Beginning Consruction
With exclusive rights from Colombia, De Lesseps arrives in the Panama region and begins construction. The plan includes constructing a 40-meter high dam at Gamboa to hold back the Chagres River. It also includes a 24-meter wide path through the Culebra Cut. -
Behind schedule
The French team is behind schedule because of flooding and landslide. Only 660,000 cubic meters have been evacuated so far. De Lesseps promised over 5 million meters at this time. -
Laborers Killed
Racial tensions rise between native and Jamaican workers lead to a violent confrontation. Panamanians soldiers kill 25 Jamaicans and wounded 20 others. This incident causes Jamaicans to return home, and the canal becomes devoid of it’s manual laborers. -
De Lesseps visits
De Lesseps and a party from France and the United States visit Panama. De Lesseps predicts that the canal will be finished by July 1889. Two months later, French engineer Armand Rousseau will submit a report to the French government concluding that the canal's completion is possible but a government lottery bill would do much to help fund the project. His report also hints at the infeasibility of a sea-level canal. De Lesseps refuses to adopt the idea of a lock-canal plan. -
Fraud
After a nine-month fundraising campaign that included borrowing 30 million francs from friends and selling lottery tickets, de Lesseps runs out of money. His company, Compagnie Nouvelle, collapses, ruining the fortunes of 800,000 private investors. Later De Lesseps and his son are found guilty of fraud and maladministration. -
Theodore Roosevelt
Vice president Theodore Roosevelt takes the oath of officer shortly after President William Mckinley is assassinated. Roosevelt immediately declares the need to build the canal in Central America. -
U.S. Steps In
A small U.S. workforce arrives in Panama to survey, plan, and continue the excavation begun by the french led by chief engineer John Findley Wallace. Chief medical officer colonel William C. Grogas arrives in panama with a team of seven men. He immediately focuses on the staggering death rate the French had come across during their time on the isthmus, looking for possible causes. His studies on the local population will show that over 70% of the local Panamanian population has malaria. -
Yellow Fever
The first worker during the American effort in Panama contracts yellow fever. Six more will get the disease in December and eight more in January. As panic sets in, many engineers and workers resign and return to the U.S. -
Work Space
New chief engineer John Stevens arrives in Panama. He starts stressing the importance of satisfactory accommodations and sanitation before construction can continue. He immediately places an order for new, state of the art equipment to improve rate of excavation. -
Panama Railroad
With rusty and decrepit Panama Railroad is now 60 years old. Steven realizes he is unable to chart out the spoil at the same furious rate the canal is being dug. Steven orders all excavations in culebra cut to be temporarily halted and turns his attention toward the repair of the railroad. -
The End
Forty five years after the U.S. first considered building a canal through Central America, the Panama Canal opened to the public. Thousands lost their lives in the effort to construct the canal, one of the most daring and innovative accomplishments of its time, and it remains integral to worldwide shipping today.
