A History of America in 100 Maps

172 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS

The Panama Canal remains one of the most

remarkable engineering feats in history, the

realization of a dream that stretched back to the

European discovery of America itself. In 1492

Christopher Columbus sailed west to find a route

to Asia, and subsequent explorers sought a similar

passage across North America. Vasco Núñez de

Balboa conclusively disproved that any such strait

existed, but in 1513 came across a narrow isthmus

BALBOA’S DREAM REALIZED

C. P. Gray, “Aeronautical View of the

Panama Canal,” 1911

just forty miles wide that separated the Atlantic and

the Pacific oceans.

The discovery of gold in California in 1848

unleashed a global wave of migration to San

Francisco, once again demonstrating the need for a

passage between the two oceans. The French began

to build the canal at Panama in 1881, but seemed

doomed from the start. Ignorance of the climate led

to yellow fever and malaria, while heavy rains foiled

the effort to excavate a sea-level canal. After thirteen

years of frustration and thousands of deaths, the

French abandoned their effort at Panama in 1894.

The timing was crucial, for in the 1890s the United

States actively extended its military and commercial