PARAISO
Paraiso was the first station beyond the summit. It was just a stopping place until the French took up the Canal work, when they made it one of their district headquarters, established a small machine shop there, and built quarters for officials and laborers. Later this was the site of one of the proposed high level locks.
The Americans enlarged the shop and added to it a shed for hostling locomotives. In 1908, at the time of the reorganization of the work by Colonel Goethals, Paraiso Shop was abandoned, and the trains ceased to stop at the village. (Just think of living where the trains don't stop.) The old shops are now used for the storage of machinery to be erected in the locks at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores.
Just before entering Paraiso the traveler gets a view of one of the prettiest interior valleys to be found in Panama. Yet it is typical of a large number of similar basins among the hills, apparently completely enclosed, but really drained at some inconspicuous spot by a little creek. This is the site chosen for a penitentiary, if it is ever decided to erect a permanent prison on the Canal Zone. It is likely the matter will be left to the military government that almost surely will be established here after the Canal is opened. Paraiso had 2,622 inhabitants in 1908, the time when it was most populous.
There is a hill back of Paraiso, from the top of which one can see the tower in the ruins of Old Panama. It is said that from this hill the pirate Morgan caught his first glimpse of the city. Whether true or not, this is surely less important than interesting.
From: “The Panama Guide” by John O. Collins, 1912, I.C.C. Press, Quartermaster’s Department, Mount Hope, C.Z.
Paraiso: Par-a-dise Eden: any place of complete bliss and delight and peace.
Etymology: (Noun) Middle English paradis, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin paradisus, from Greek paradeisos, literally, enclosed park, of Iranian origin; akin to Avestan pairi-daeza- enclosure; akin to Greek peri around and to Greek teichos wall.
Heaven: a place or state of bliss, felicity, or delight.
Eden: an intermediate place or state where the souls of the righteous await resurrection and the final judgment.
