The history of the Panama Canal is full of disease, death, corruption, politics, and brilliant engineering.
Until the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, ships had to sail south of South America to get between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The route was both long and dangerous, and it could take weeks to get around Cape Horn, the small cliff that marks the divide between the Atlantic and Pacific.
Shipwrecks were common.
– They simply sailed too hard, and were blown ashore, or sank in severe storms. The ships had been out at sea for a very long time, and some ran out of provisions and disease broke out on board, Captain Marcus Seidl said when Statsraad Lehmkuhl rounded the cape in 2022.
Panama is only between 50 and 80 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, so it is no surprise that the idea of a canal emerged as early as the 1500s.
That story we will return to later - but first, the hard facts.
An Intricate System
The Panama Canal is not a trench dug from ocean to ocean, but a system of canals and locks.
From the city of Colón on the Atlantic side, ships are raised into Gatun Lake, 27 meters above sea level. The lake is artificial, created by damming the Gatun River. Ships then sail 24 kilometers across the lake and into the Culebra Cut, a 12 km canal carved through a mountain ridge. From there, vessels are lowered into another artificial lake, Miraflores Lake, 16 meters above sea level, before new locks bring them down to the Pacific and Panama City.
The full transit normally takes between 11 and 12 hours, and in 2024, 11,240 ships sailed through the canal.
The journey from ocean to ocean is a total of 82 kilometers and accommodates ships up to 366 meters long, 49 meters wide, and with a maximum draft of 15.2 meters. Vessels cannot be higher than 57.91 meters, an important limitation for a sailing ship. Statsraad Lehmkuhl’s 48-meter-high main mast passes comfortably under the bridges.
First a railroad
The history of the Panama Canal begins in 1513, when Spaniard Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed Panama. In his report, he was the first to mention the possibility of building a shipping canal here.
Over the next 300 years the idea was raised several times, but never realized.
In 1848, gold was discovered in California. The need for faster transport between the Pacific and Atlantic exploded, and between 1850 and 1855 a group of American businessmen led by William Henry Aspinwall built a railway between Colón and Panama City.
It was a hazardous project: between 6,000 and 12,000 workers died in the jungle. The cost was six times higher than budgeted, but the railway was completed - and made its owners immensely wealthy.
The French attempt
Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man behind the Suez Canal which opened in 1869, was contacted in 1875 by a group who wanted him to repeat the success and build a canal through Panama. De Lesseps proposed a sea-level canal, like Suez – but less than half the length.
Work began in 1881.
More than 40,000 workers were employed, most from the West Indies. As with the railway, the number of injured, sick, and dead was huge. Rain, floods, landslides, poisonous snakes, insects, yellow fever, and malaria claimed up to 200 lives a month at the worst. In 1889 the money ran out, and the work stopped.
It turned out that members of the French government had taken bribes to stay quiet about the financial problems - the largest corruption scandal of the 19th century. Close to half a billion francs were lost.
The United States takes over
In 1903, Panama declared independence from Colombia. The United States supported Panama both politically and militarily, and landed an agreement that gave them the rights to the canal. In 1904 the U.S. took over the French company’s equipment and buildings, and started planning.
1907: Construction work on the Gaillard Cut. Photo: Wikimedia commons
1911: Railway cars remove excavated material. Photo: Wikimedia commons
1913: Construction of locks. Photo: Wikimedia commons
John Frank Stevens was given technical responsibility. He redesigned the project into the system of locks and artificial lakes that we see today. Stevens improved conditions for the workers and replaced outdated French equipment with modern machinery.
On October 10, 1913, water was released into the Culebra Cut, and on August 3, 1914, the SS Cristobal became the first ship to pass through the canal.
Today
The locks consume water when raising and lowering ships, and drought has at times reduced their capacity. The system of rivers and lakes has therefore been expanded several times, and additional, larger locks have also been built.
The income from the canal is vital for Panama. Ownership of the canal therefore became a political issue after World War II, eventually leading the United States to hand it over to the Panama Canal Authority in 1999.
Ownership has once again become a political issue after Donald Trump assumed the presidency in the United States in 2025.
