| A lot more coming to this section in the very near future. I have a lot of photos of Panama and the Panama Canal that will be here soon. |
| The United States and the Panama Canal |
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| The official seal of the Panama Canal Zone in brass, "The Land Divided, The World United" |
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The failure of the French Canal Company to construct the Panama Canal opened the door for the Americans to buy into this monsterous task. Some key members of the French Canal Company did some political maneuvering to get in the door to key political leaders in the U.S. to convince them to take over their contract and their equpment for this huge task, with payments to be made made to the French Canal Company, for their "rights" supposedly to build the Canal, when actually those rights had disappeared when Panama gained its independence from Colombia in 1903. The 40 million dollars paid the French Canal Company was small compensation for their expensive venture, and it did little to salve the feelings of those that had been duped into investing in this venture.
The US also followed up in their compensation efforts by paying $10 million dollars to Colombia for political reason. And they paid the new nation of Panama another $10 million for their agreeing to the US building the Canal. This funded the government of Panama so that it could begin operations.
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| Gatun Locks on the Panama Canal leading out to the Atlantic Ocean. This was the location where the U.S. built the first set of locks on the Canal. |
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When the Canal was designed in 1906, the original design called for the lock chambers to be 150' wide and 1,500' long. The U.S. Congress turned this proposal down because of what they felt were excessive costs involved in building three sets of locks that large. So the final result was a set of locks with chambers that are 110' wide and 1,000' long. Too small for a great many of the ships that now are carrying the world's cargo. This tanker in the photo below in Miraflores Locks is a good example of how the larger ships can hardly make it through. Our own surplus WWII battleships fit through in the same manner, and the new warships of the U.S. fleet cannot go through the Canal.
The latest proposal calls for a new "third set of locks" that will accomodate today's large ships. The existing locks would remain and take care of most of the traffic, but the new waterway, alongside the existing waterway, with new locks would take care of the expanded size of the modern cargo carriers.
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| Filling the entire chamber is this tanker |
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The Panama Canal is going through some very interesting and possibly historic changes right now. The people of Panama just voted in October to support an initiative to search for the funds and be obligated for billions of dollars to rebuild the current Canal which no longer can allow the transit of all the ships of the world. They are too large, and the Canal cannot accomodate them. This new effort, called the Third Locks, will proceed in the same areas as the US did in the late 1930's when construction of this same thing was halted by WW II.
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