Essay On The Panama Canal

The creation of the Panama Canal was far more than an unprecedented feat of engineering. It was a profoundly important historic event and a sweeping human drama, not unlike that of a war. Apart from wars, it represented the largest, most costly single effort ever before performed anywhere on earth. It held the world’s attention over a span of 40 years because of the all the various labor exerted and problems that had to be solved for completion of this major world project (Ayers et al 610). It affected the lives of multiple nationalities. Great reputations were both made and destroyed. This world project involved numerous men and women who worked and faced this creation as an adventure of a lifetime (Hammond 64).

The original reason the Panama Canal was planned and built was because of a man named Vasco Nunez de Balboa. The existence of an isthmus, a narrow strip of land with water on each side, between the two great seas was discovered by this Spanish explorer. Balboa, the first European to see the expanse of the Pacific Ocean in 1513, was also the first one to see the possibility of a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (Ochoa 78-81). Before the canal project began, the land area was surveyed and the Spanish built a road, The Royal Road, across Panama to connect the two great bodies of water. This road was completed in 1522. Word spread quickly of this and the idea of a canal project to connect the two seas was born. People of many lands began dreaming of building and completing such a canal across Central America. Before a canal would be build a railroad was built during the California gold rush that began in 1849. When gold was discovered in California, thousands of people headed west to dig fortunes for the...

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...strous. These landslides were caused by the heavy rainfall which often caused the hills being dug to give way, resulting in massive landslides. The workers cut their way through the continent with dynamite and steam shovels. These engineering maneuvers were slow and time consuming but were completed successfully (McCullough 106-108).

It took 33 years to complete the canal. The effort resulted in a canal that serves as a vital commercial and military waterway. Many people had supported the need for this canal for war/defense purposes, travel, and trade. This route enabled ships to travel between Atlantic and Pacific ports without sailing around South America, saving distance of more than 7800 miles. Construction of this canal was not only a major engineering accomplishment, but it also was a political and economic victory for the United States (Winkelman 157).