On August 15, 1914, the US Ancon, an American cargo and passenger ship, became the first ship to pass through the Panama Canal, which more than one hundred years later is still widely considered the greatest engineering achievement in history.
The Canal’s opening was the culmination of eleven years of difficult construction work at a cost to the United States taxpayer of approximately $375,000,000. It is estimated that more than 55,000 people were employed during the construction phase from 1903-1914 and an estimated 5,600 died of injury and disease. The death toll would have been higher without effective protocols to control diseases, which were prevalent in the tropical climate and jungle environment of Panama.
Following the 1902 United States Senate vote to fund and support the building of the Panama Canal, President Theodore Roosevelt would launch the effort to realize a long-term United States goal – facilitating the inexpensive and efficient shipping of goods between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
After the Senate’s vote, Secretary of State John Hay signed a treaty with Colombian Foreign Minister Tomás Herrán to build the new canal. Panama was under Colombian control at the time. Following the Treaty’s rejection by the Colombian congress, Roosevelt dispatched U.S. warships to Panama City (on the Pacific Coast) and Colón (on the Atlantic Coast) in support of Panamanian independence, which was soon declared on November 3, 1903.
The United States learned much from an earlier attempt to build a canal through the isthmus of Panama. The first attempt began in 1881 after the Colombian government granted a concession to the privately owned Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique, which was under the leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the famed French engineer who recently completed the construction of the Suez Canal. Poor planning led to the cancellation of the French attempt. The company had not adequately planned for managing the strong tropical rains, debilitating heat and humidity, and tropical diseases. More than 20,000 workers are believed to have lost their lives during the French attempt at building the canal, with most dying from tropical diseases.
The Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of February 1904 was negotiated following Panama’s independence, creating the Panama Canal Zone. President Roosevelt was such an enthusiastic champion on the Canal’s construction, he has been called the “Father of the Panama Canal”, however, it was completed during President Taft’s administration. American civil engineer George Washington Goethals would become the first Governor of the Canal, serving from 1914-1917.
In the years and decades following the Canal’s opening, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty became an irritant to Panama. The Treaty was written and agreed to by a Frenchman (Bunau-Varilla) who had not been in Panama for several years. The agreement assigned sovereignty of the Canal and the surrounding land to the United States in perpetuity. Several amendments in the following decades addressed some of Panama’s objections, however, it wasn’t until 1977 that the United States agreed to transfer complete control and ownership of the Canal to Panama.
Signed by General Omar Torrijos of Panama and U.S. President Jimmy Carter, The Panama Canal Treaty was signed on September 7 of that year. The Treaty, which officially commenced in 1979, terminated all prior treaties between the United States and Panama concerning the canal and recognized Panama as territorial sovereign, but it gave the United States the right to continue managing, operating, and maintaining the canal during a transition period of 20 years covered by the agreement. The Treaty expired on December 31, 1999, after which complete control and ownership of the Panama Canal transferred to the government of Panama.
Today, approximately 14,000 vessels transit the Panama Canal each year. The 50-mile-long canal takes about 10 hours to cross but continues to save enormous amounts of costs (in time, fuel, and other expenses) for shipping companies moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans (or vice versa).
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Sources:
Special Wonders of the Canal, by Byron Breedlove; National Library of Medicine
Office of the Historian, “Building the Panama Canal 1903-1914”
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/panama-canal
Gordon, Burton L., Cho, Aileen, Worthington, William E., Padelford, Norman J., Bray, Wayne D.. “Panama Canal”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 March 2025
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Panama-Canal. Accessed 5 March 2025.
Statista.com; Number of Transits in the Panama Canal 2014-2022
https://www.statista.com/statistics/710163/transits-panama-canal/