The Panama Canal was one of the world’s greatest achievements of the time; and also one of Teddy Roosevelt’s biggest obsessions. Lesseps started the canal in 1879, starting the French Canal which later ended in tragedy in 1888 when the project finally came to a screeching halt with 20,000 lives lost after those 8 and a half years of failure. Teddy saw this as a great opportunity to do what he really wanted to for a long time, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
When he proposed buying the Panama Isthmus, they objected unanimously, and refused to turn it over even if it meant a great historic event for the world. Teddy convinced the Panamanians to revolutionize and become an independent country. Once they became independent, they agreed to give us the isthmus to make the canal. The canal zone was laid out for construction. November 1904, excavation began on the Canal. By 1905 three quarters of the American workers fled the horrid conditions of the canal project and seventy-six million dollars were spent in that single year of more failed attempts. The Canal project looked like it was going to be a repeat of the French’s attempt, and fail just as terribly due to yellow-fever and bad working conditions.
Soon after the failed attempt at the canal, John Stevens a railroad engineer took over the Panama Canal project. He was a very smart man and an engineering genius having built so many railroads. He quickly noticed that the major flaw was how fast they were rushing it, and the faulty railroad system they had set up to remove the dirt. He immediately ordered the digging to be stopped at once, completely going against what Teddy had desired. This enraged Teddy Roosevelt greatly. Stevens then replaced the railroad as his first order of business to something more of his liking and something that could withstand the constant usage and harboring it was about to accommodate. The next thing Stevens did was engineer new equipment intended to replace the old, rusty equipment from the 1880s and speed the process up drastically. The final thing he did before resuming the excavation was plan out a better way to go about building this canal. He decided on having the canal built on both ends simultaneously and working their way into the middle, the highest point of the isthmus and the hardest to work through. This led to a stomach dropping discovery. A sea level canal would not work in anyway; the water’s from the river would flood it just as they had been doing to their work, setting back months of digging. Stevens then designed a new system of a lock canal to be built up along the steep, high mountains in the middle opposed to digging through them which proved to be a huge challenge. So they damned up a lake on the top of the mountain through the middle of the river to begin this.
In 1906, twenty-thousand jobs were created thanks to the Panama Canal project; despite the horrible working conditions and high percentage of yellow fever. Even with 24,000 men at Steven’s disposal, thousands of them were getting sick with various types of diseases that put them out of work for long periods of time, making the process of the canal even slower. Colonel William Gorgas, an army doctor was brought in to find a way to fix the problem. He discovered that yellow fever was carried by mosquitos, and was backed my Teddy Roosevelt to go through with his plan of exterminating every last mosquito on the isthmus. He succeeded. On November 11, the last yellow fever victim died. Gorgas helped make the Canal project possible.
Even with the Canal’s success and progress, Stevens had been on the job for a long time and put in too many 14 hour days to want to continue his work. He sent a letter to Washington solidifying his resignation. This forced Teddy to hire a new man for the job, one that could see the project through to the end. A military man; by the name of George W. Geothals was hired to do this very thing. He put a quick end to the striking workers for shorter work days and better pays by simply sending them home and leading an example to all others. Anybody who struck out was immediately sent home, which was a bold action but it was extremely effective.
With Goethals on the job, there was around the clock operation on the Canal. They advanced rapidly using Steven’s equipment, and soon came to the hardest part of the whole project; the Culebra Cut. Along with rapid success, living quarters were improved greatly for workers and caused Americans to want to stay and work for longer rather than leave due to the harsh conditions of the Canal Zone. By 1913 work to put the finishing touches on the canal began. August 15, 1914 the canal had its official opening, marking a historical day for the world and specifically America, whom had now demonstrated their engineering power to the world. Despite the 5,000 lives lost and $350,000,000 spent on the project, it was finally done, and it was something of a true miracle and would forever hold its spot as one of the world’s greatest achievements of its time.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tr-panama/