CRANE EQUIPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE PANAMA CANAL 

A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PANAMA CANAL

AMERICAN TAKE OVER 1904

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MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" LOCKS CONSTRUCTION 1904-1906

Shortly after ascending to the presidency, Theodore Roosevelt spoke of the Panama Canal in a speech to Congress. "No single great material work which remains to be undertaken on this continent, "Roosevelt said, "is as of such consequence to the American people." 

Roosevelt acted quickly. In 1902, the United States reached an agreement to buy rights to the French canal property and equipment for a sum not to exceed $40 million.

The U.S. then began negotiating a Panama treaty with Colombia. Roosevelt made construction of the canal a priority, announcing his intention to make "the dirt fly" in Central America.

The first ICC chief engineer was John F. Wallace, who was a railroad engineer and general manager of the Illinois Railroad when he took the job to build the canal.

He arrived in Panama to take over from acting chief engineer Major Black in July 1904, but he resigned a year later. He was fearful of the yellow fever threat and attracted by a better paying job in the United States. Railroad engineer John Stevens, an executive with the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad, replaced Wallace and arrived in Panama in July 1905. He remained longer than Wallace and was successful in building a solid infrastructure that included worker and family quarters.

Chief Engineer John Stevens, a veteran of railroad construction in the Rocky Mountains, recognised that the challenge of the canal was simultaneously one of excavation and transportation. Rock had to be moved from the mountains, where it blocked the canal, to the river delta, where it formed the core of the new Gatun Dam. His railroad excavation system functioned like a conveyor belt with the trains carrying the dirt from the steam shovels directly to the dump sites. The mainstay of the construction effort was the 95-ton, track-mounted, Bucyrus steam shovel. Six million pounds of dynamite per year blasted the hundreds of feet of basalt that blocked the route. At the peak of the construction effort, 25,000 men removed a million cubic yards of material every day. This massive excavation capability was balanced with dumping capacity, using a complex rail system of one-sided flatcars that hauled away 200 trainloads of excavated material daily. As the digging progressed, enormous track shifters moved the rail lines to the main areas of excavation.

Stevens was ready to dig in 1906, but the type of canal - sea-level or lock - remained a question. Wallace had recommended a sea-level canal, but Stevens favored a lock canal. A 13-member board of consulting engineers recommended, by an 8-5 margin, a sea-level canal, but the ICC accepted the minority report for a lock canal written by retired Army engineer Brigadier General Henry L. Abbot. The plan President Roosevelt signed into law in June 1906 called for a canal with three locks on the Atlantic side, three on the Pacific side, and a lake in the middle created by damming the Chagres River at Gatun.

Stevens never got very far with this plan because he resigned in February 1907. His strength was as a railroad construction engineer, and by 1907 the conveyor-belt-type railroad system was in place. What awaited Stevens was hydraulic engineering: the design of dams and locks and the large scale use of concrete. That was not his strength, but it certainly was the strength of Army engineers in the U .S. Army Corps of Engineers. Thus, it was to the Corps that President Roosevelt looked to get someone who could not quit.

ROOSEVELT'S VISIT TO PANAMA CANAL 1906

In the fall of 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Canal Zone.  He was the first American president to visit a foreign country.  Panama Hats took off in production in the middle of the 19th century.  For the construction of this amazing project, Panama Hats were crucial. The environment where the construction crew of the Panama Canal worked was hot and humid. Sunny days made Panama Hats a daily must wear head gear and some of the finest woven hats could even hold water to refresh the hard workers digging out tons of earth. Theodore Roosevelt fell in love with these hats while visiting the construction of the Canal in 1906. His picture wearing a fine "Panama Hat" appeared in The New York Times.

On 18 February, Roosevelt summoned Army engineer Major George W. Goethals to the White House for an interview and, on 26 February, he announced that Goethals was going to Panama as chairman of the ICC and chief engineer to complete construction of the Panama Canal . As a member of the Army General Staff, Major Goethals had accompanied Secretary of War William Howard Taft to the Canal Zone in 1905 to recommend sites for coast defense fortifications.

In 1907 Goethals was 47 years old and had almost 30 years experience as an officer in the Corps of Engineers. Upon graduation from West Point in 1880, he entered the Corps and began a career of river-and-harbor and lock-dam construction work on the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, canal work at Muscle Shoals, and coast defense construction work in New England.

If any one person can be credited for this achievement it is George W. Goethals, the project's chief engineer, 1907-1915. The first two chief engineers, both civilians, resigned after short tenures. President Theodore Roosevelt announced that the next chief would be an Army officer, who, if he walked off the job, would find himself facing a court martial. The man selected was Major George W. Goethals of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

As a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission Goethals visited the Canal Zone in 1905. He so impressed Roosevelt and Secretary of War William Howard Taft that they chose him for the chief engineer's position after the resignation of the second chief, John F. Stevens. Stevens had been much loved by those who had been laboring on the Canal. They worried that Goethals (soon to be Lieutenant Colonel and later Colonel) would impose a military regime. He dispelled these fears by appearing only in civilian clothing and inviting all workers to talk freely with him regarding any grievances. Goethals reported only to the president and secretary of war, who placed few limits on his powers.

Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in March 1907, Goethals took with him to Panama as members of the ICC two other Army engineers, Majors David Gaillard and William Sibert. Both were members of the West Point class of 1884. Gaillard was serving on the General Staff with Goethals and had experience in river-and-harbor work, while Sibert had a river-and-canal work background. Goethals placed Army engineer Major Harry F. Hodges in charge of the ICC office in Washington, DC, where he could use Corps personnel throughout the United States to help select and inspect equipment to be sent to the Canal Zone. Goethals initially organized the canal work by type, putting Gaillard in charge of excavation and dredging and assigning Sibert to lock-and-dam construction.

After several months of observation, Goethals was ready to make some changes. In late 1907, he moved the two Sosa Hill locks on the Pacific side inland to Miraflores because of the threat of naval bombardment. He brought Hodges to Panama as assistant engineer in charge of lock design and replaced him in Washington with Army engineer Major Frank C. Boggs. He widened the bottom width of the Culebra Cut, a channel through the Culebra Mountain in the Continental Divide, from 200 to 300 feet; and, on the recommendation of the Navy, increased the lock widths from 100 to 110 feet.  Traveling in a railroad car known as the "Yellow Peril," Goethals regularly oversaw the work at the various construction sites. These included two dams, six sets of locks, two artificial lakes, regulating works, entrance channels, breakwaters, telephone and telegraph systems, a hydroelectric station, a rebuilt railroad, and the excavation of the challenging Culebra Cut.

Consult this link for more information and photographs regarding the construction of the Panama Canal between 1907-1909

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