We Were Builders Once
March 22, 2018
The Daily Record
by Joe Nathanson
Daily Record 2018 03-22 We Were Builders Once
“On a trip inspired by my wife, earlier this year I had the wonderful experience of transiting the Panama Canal. I had the opportunity to observe firsthand how the locks – a set of three compartments comprising the initial Gatun Locks — lifted us 85 feet above the Atlantic Ocean to the level of Gatun Lake. I marveled at how the gates that controlled the water flowing into the compartments operated flawlessly. These were the same mechanisms that had been designed and fabricated over 100 years ago. Later in our 50-mile passage, two more sets of locks allowed us to descend to the level of the Pacific Ocean.
In the course of preparing for the trip, as well as during the cruise, we had a chance to read about the engineering, financial and political challenges to bring the canal into operation in 1914. After false starts by two successive French-led enterprises, the United States took matters in hand, with President Theodore Roosevelt leading the charge for building the canal across the isthmus of Panama (helping to engineer a 1903 bloodless coup that established Panama as a new nation, independent of Colombia)…”