Panama Canal

===United States construction of the Panama canal, 1904–1914===
[[File:John Frank Stevens.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Chief engineer [[John Frank Stevens]]]]
[[File:William Crawford Gorgas.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Sanitation officer [[William C. Gorgas]]]]

The US formally took control of the canal property on May 4, 1904, inheriting from the French a depleted workforce and a vast jumble of buildings, infrastructure, and equipment, much of it in poor condition. A US government commission, the [[Isthmian Canal Commission]] (ICC), was established to oversee construction; it was given control of the Panama Canal Zone, over which the United States exercised sovereignty.{{sfn |McCullough |1977 |pp=273–274}} The commission reported directly to [[Secretary of War]] [[William Howard Taft]] and was directed to avoid the inefficiency and corruption that had plagued the French 15 years earlier.

On May 6, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed [[John Findley Wallace]], formerly chief engineer and finally general manager of the [[Illinois Central Railroad]], as chief engineer of the Panama Canal Project. Overwhelmed by the disease-plagued country and forced to use often dilapidated French infrastructure and equipment,{{sfn |McCullough |1977 |p=440}} as well as being frustrated by the overly bureaucratic ICC, Wallace resigned abruptly in June 1905.{{sfn |McCullough |1977 |p=457}} The ICC brought on a new chairman, [[Theodore P. Shonts]], and a new chief engineer was appointed, [[John Frank Stevens]], a self-educated engineer who had built the [[Great Northern Railway (U.S.)|Great Northern Railroad]].{{sfn |McCullough |1977 |pp=459–462}} Stevens was not a member of the ICC; he increasingly viewed its bureaucracy as a serious hindrance, bypassing the commission and sending requests and demands directly to the Roosevelt administration in Washington, DC.

One of Stevens' first achievements in Panama was in building and rebuilding the housing, cafeterias, hotels, water systems, repair shops, warehouses, and other infrastructure needed by the thousands of incoming workers. Stevens began the recruitment effort to entice thousands of workers from the United States and other areas to come to the Canal Zone to work. Workers from the Caribbean—called "[[Afro-Panamanians]]"—came in large numbers and many settled permanently. Stevens tried to provide accommodation in which the workers could work and live in reasonable safety and comfort. He also re-established and enlarged the railway, which was to prove crucial in transporting millions of tons of soil from the cut through the mountains to the dam across the Chagres River.

[[File:Roosevelt and the Canal.JPG|thumb|upright|President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] sitting on a Bucyrus steam shovel at Culebra Cut, 1906]]
[[File:Panama Canal under construction, 1907.jpg|thumb|upright|Construction work on the [[Gaillard Cut]] is shown in this photograph from 1907.]]

Colonel [[William C. Gorgas]] had been appointed chief sanitation officer of the canal construction project in 1904. Gorgas implemented a range of measures to minimize the spread of deadly diseases, particularly [[yellow fever]] and [[malaria]], which had recently been shown to be mosquito-borne following the work of Cuban epidemiologist, [[Carlos Finlay]] and American pathologist, [[Walter Reed]].{{sfn |McCullough |1977 |pp=405–426}} Investment was made in extensive sanitation projects, including city water systems, fumigation of buildings, spraying of insect-breeding areas with oil and larvicide, installation of mosquito netting and window screens, and elimination of stagnant water. Despite opposition from the commission (one member said his ideas were barmy), Gorgas persisted, and when Stevens arrived, he threw his weight behind the project. After two years of extensive work, [[Health measures during the construction of the Panama Canal|the mosquito-spread diseases were nearly eliminated]].{{sfn |McCullough |1977 |pp=466–468}} Despite the monumental effort, about 5,600 workers ended up dead via disease and accidents during the US construction phase of the canal.

Besides healthier and far better living conditions for the workers, another benefit given to American citizens working on the Canal was a medal for two years of service.  Additional bars were added for each two year period after that.  Designed by [[Victor D. Brenner]] and featuring the then-current president they were popularly known as ''The Roosevelt Medal''. A total of 7189 were ultimately issued, with a few people receiving as many as 4 bars.<ref>[https://www.czbrats.com/Builders/roosemedals.htm The Panama Canal Service Medal - The "Junk" Medal]</ref>  Certificates are available today.<ref>[https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/roosevelt-medal-holders/ Roosevelt Medal Holders ]</ref>

In 1905, a US engineering panel was commissioned to review the canal design, which had not been finalized. In January 1906 the panel, in a majority of eight to five, recommended to President Roosevelt a sea-level canal,<ref>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Panama Canal |volume=20 |page=670}}</ref> as had been attempted by the French and temporarily abandoned by them in 1887 for a ten locks system designed by Philippe Bunau-Varilla, and definitively in 1898 for a lock-and-lake canal designed by the Comité Technique of the Compagnie Nouvelle de Canal de Panama as conceptualized by Adolphe Godin de Lépinay in 1879.<ref>Panama Canal Official Site – https://www.pancanal.com/eng/history/history/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210910235443/https://www.pancanal.com/eng/history/history/ |date=September 10, 2021 }} select chapter The French Canal Construction – accessed 9/11/2021</ref> But in 1906 Stevens, who had seen the Chagres in full flood, was summoned to Washington; he declared a sea-level approach to be "an entirely untenable proposition". He argued in favor of a canal using a lock system to raise and lower ships from a large reservoir {{convert|85|ft|m|abbr=on|sigfig=2}} above sea level. This would create both the largest dam (Gatun Dam) and the largest human-made lake (Gatun Lake) in the world at that time. The water to refill the locks would be taken from Gatun Lake by opening and closing enormous gates and valves and letting gravity propel the water from the lake. Gatun Lake would connect to the Pacific through the mountains at the [[Gaillard Cut|Gaillard]] (Culebra) Cut. Unlike Godin de Lépinay with the Congrès International d'Etudes du Canal Interocéanique, Stevens successfully convinced Roosevelt of the necessity and feasibility of this alternative scheme.{{sfn |McCullough |1977 |pp=485–489}}

The construction of a canal with locks required the excavation of more than {{convert|17|e6cuyd|e6m3|abbr=unit|sigfig=2}} of material over and above the {{convert|30|e6cuyd|e6m3|abbr=unit|sigfig=2}} excavated by the French. As quickly as possible, the Americans replaced or upgraded the old, unusable French equipment with new construction equipment that was designed for a much larger and faster scale of work. 102 large, railroad-mounted [[steam shovel]]s were purchased, 77 from [[Bucyrus-Erie]], and 25 from the [[Marion Power Shovel Company]]. These were joined by enormous steam-powered cranes, giant hydraulic [[rock crusher]]s, [[concrete mixer]]s, [[dredge]]s, and pneumatic power drills, nearly all of which were manufactured by new, extensive machine-building technology developed and built in the United States. The railroad also had to be comprehensively upgraded with heavy-duty, double-tracked rails over most of the line to accommodate new [[rolling stock]]. In many places, the new Gatun Lake flooded over the original rail line, and a new line had to be constructed above Gatun Lake's waterline.

Between 1912 and 1914 there was [[Hay–Pauncefote Treaty#Tolls controversy|a controversy about the tolls for the canal]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Coker |first=William S. |date=1968 |title=The Panama Canal Tolls Controversy: A Different Perspective |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1891013 |journal=The Journal of American History |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=555–564 |doi=10.2307/1891013 |jstor=1891013 |issn=0021-8723}}</ref>

{{Panorama
|image      = File:PanamaCanal1913a.jpg
|height     = 165
|caption    = Construction of locks on the Panama Canal, 1913
}}