Paraiso & Canal Zone Towns
Canal Zone Info
PARAISO Returning now to the east side of the Canal and to the new main line of the railroad, the train stops at Paradise, for that is what Paraiso means. The original line of the Panama Railroad crossed the divide through the pass now used by the canal, and Paraiso was the first station beyond the canal, and 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." RED TANK There are no more games of "Brown Girl in the Ring" on the sidewalks of Red Tank. The heated domino and draughts tournaments are no longer going on under the houses which have faced Gaillard Highway for 35 years. The market women from Chiva Chiva have stopped selling their plantain and yucca and yam at their little makeshift stands along the street. For there are no more men or women or children living in Red Tank. The local-rate town, whose population swelled to over 2,200 in the decade between 1931 and 1941 is now deserted. The last residents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Moseley, moved November 12 to Paraiso where many of their former neighbors had preceded them. A Panama Canal employee for 40 years, he had been the Salvation Army's Red Tank representative for the past three years. Birds and a Dog For two weeks, the Moseleys were the only people living in Red Tank. Rover, whose bark is worse than his bite, and the birds which came each morning to the Moseley's back porch to be fed, were the only other living creatures in the town. The last Canal families had moved October 29 to La Boca. The Red Tank school which last year had 371 pupils had only two left when it closed its doors for the last time October 30. The Red Tank Commissary sold its last goods October 31. Today Red Tank is a ghost town. Long pieces of wood have been nailed across the doors of the vacated houses which will soon be demolished. The remaining stock has been removed from the commissary. Along the back streets of the town the grass is beginning to grow high. Pedro Miguel Red Tank Red Tank's beginnings are hazy. A 1904 timetable for the Panama Railroad shows a stop called Pedro Miguel Tank, five-tenths of a mile south of Pedro Miguel proper. The same timetable, which lists the tank as a stop for all trains, indicates that it had a siding for 24 cars. Old timers, like William Jump, recall that there was a big water tank, painted with red lead, on a hill behind what later became the town. From this undoubtedly came the name of Red Tank which is mentioned in a 1908 file in a letter recommending the demolition of three old "buildings at Red Tank . . .they are all in very bad shape." The name of Red Tank does not appear again in official files until November, 1915, six months after a three-man committee was appointed to investigate and report on the number of quarters which would be needed for local-rate employees near Pedro Miguel and Miraflores. The committee recommended the construction of 80 apartments, to cost $56,000, and to "be located in the vicinity of the tunnel dump." Census For 1916: 242 The first Red Tank quarters were completed that same year. The first occupants were 42 families and 42 bachelors, all the men employees at Pedro Miguel Locks. The first census report for Ted Tank showed 242 residents in June, 1916. In 1917 more quarters were built and 83 families and 40 bachelors, were moved into Red Tank from Rio Grande. Later that same year Wards 7,8,9, and 10 from Ancon -now Gorgas-Hospital were re-erected at Red Tank as Building 536. This huge structure, housing 48 families, immediately and unofficially was christened the Titanic. The smaller building next door, which had also been an old Ancon Hospital ward, quite logically was known as the Iceberg. Both buildings had been built at the hospital in 1907. They were torn down in 1951. By 1919 Red Tank's population had grown to 1,302 and six years later had increased to 1,672. In August 1927, four buildings were brought to Red Tank from Culebra and re-erected as 10-family quarters. Later that year three old Army barracks from Camp Gaillard on the west side of the Canal, were rebuilt into two 12-family quarters. These last were to house local-rate employees who were still living on the west side of the Canal in the Gaillard and Empire districts. War Boom Like all Canal towns, Red Tank mushroomed during the hectic days just before and in the early part of World War II. Barracks were put up for local-rate bachelors, the clubhouse enlarged. The clubhouse, which had been built in 1919, was completely destroyed by a fire on February 23, 1945. The fire was caused by a break in the fuel supply line of a pressing machine in a tailor shop in the clubhouse basement. One woman, an employee in the shop, was badly burned. The heat from the burning one-story building was so intense that a wooden retaining wall across the street and along the railroad tracks was set afire and grass began to blaze beside the tracks. After the fire, clubhouse facilities were provided in an old school building. A dispensary, Red Tank's first, was opened in June, 1946, but closed three years later when the town's population had begun to drop. Deserted today, Red Tank had had 1,075 inhabitants when this year's police census was taken in June. Over half of these were children. It was the children the Moseleys missed most during their two weeks as Red Tank's only residents. "We were so used to the patter of children's feet," Mrs. Moseley said, "that after we were alone I thought time after time I heard children running, although I knew truly that there were no children there. I would go to the window and look. Of course there weren't children, or anyone else." EMPIRE This village was originally called Emperador, and some American who knows even less Spanish than your guide, translated it Empire. It really means Emperor. At this point, prior to the opening of the railroad, the trail from Gorgona to Panama crossed the line of the present canal and the headwaters of the Obispo River, and made off through the hills to join the Cruces trail to the city. Emperador was a stopping place for pack trains. Here the French made their first excavation in Culebra Cut, January 20, 1882, in the presence of a large assemblage of officials of the Canal Company and the State of Panama. The Bishop was present and blessed the work, and some champagne was opened to baptize it. The largest of the French villages was made here, shops were opened for the mounting and repair of equipment, and the place was made the headquarters of the Division Engineer. On the hill overlooking Culebra Cut are several houses erected by the French, now used by their successors on the job. The old French quarters were occupied by the Americans, and the machine shop was rebuilt. In this shop are now repaired all the steamshovels working on the canal and railroad. On top of the hill is the office of the Division Engineer, Lieut. Co. D.D. Gaillard, and the homes of the Resident Engineer, M. A. S. Zinn, and other canal officials. From the observation platform in the Division Office, may be obtained the best single view of Culebra Cut, showing how it winds like an elongated letter "S," following the contour of the ground in order to minimize the amount of excavation. A closer view may be obtained from the suspension bridge over the Cut, built for the purpose of carrying air and water mains to the east side of the trench, from the source of supply on the west side. From: "The Panama Guide" by John O. Collins, 1912, I.C.C. Press, Quartermaster's Department, Mount Hope, C.Z. GATUN Gatun Dam. The steel towers seen on either side of the lock walls support the tableways on which concrete is handled from the mixers into the forms. The first stop is at New Gatun, and here, by looking out of the window, one may get an idea of the two sections into which every large village of the Canal Zone is divided—the "native" and the "American" sections. The native section is not inhabited exclusively by natives of Panama, but largely by West Indian negroes and European laborers. It is the part in which one finds the saloons, small retail stores, and the lodging-houses and apartments which are so generally preferred by the negro laborers to the quarters furnished free by the Government. The "native" town is the center of the non-American life. Beyond it is the American settlement, a series of frame houses, all of one type, varying in size according to the salary of the official or employee who occupies them. Here are the family and bachelor quarters for Americans, the mess, hall, lodge hall and church, post office, commissary store, and administrative offices. Hold on to your hat when you alight at Gatun because this is the breeziest place on the Isthmus. The tourist will do well to go direct to the building on the hill, in which is the office of the Division Engineer of the Atlantic Division, Lieut. Col. Wm. L. Sibert, and the administrative staff under his direction. From the veranda of this building the best view of the canal that can be obtained from any one point is afforded. Looking northward one can see the waters of Limon Bay, the masts of shipping in the harbor of Cristobal and Colon, and, nearer, the dredges at work in the Atlantic entrance to the canal. Looking into the valley the locks are seen, and beyond them the dam in process of construction. The plans of the locks and dam are referred to in the section of this book devoted to the canal. The method of construction can be seen from the veranda. The locks are placed in a hill on solid rock, and are three parallel concrete chambers forming three distinct steps for the purpose of lifting ships from the sea level to the lake section or lowering them from the lake to sea level. The dam is composed of two long mounds or toes of rock and earth running parallel to one another and, on the natural level of the ground, about 1,200 feet apart. Between these mounds an impermeable mass of sandy clay is pumped by suction dredge. The water flows off, allowing the impermeable core to remain between the rock toes. About half way across the valley the spillway is being constructed through a hill for the purpose of regulating the surface of Gatun Lake, in order that the water in flood-time may not rise so high as to threaten the destruction of the dam. On procuring permission from the office, the tourist may walk down to the locks and cross the chambers upon one of the construction bridges, or, if he is ambitious and willing to undertake a fruitless climb, he may descend into the locks themselves. From the construction bridges one gets a very good idea of what the locks are like, for he sees them in all stages of construction, from the completed walls to those now in process of building, and from the completed gates at the south end to the gates now being erected. Gatun was not always a brand-new village perched on a hill overlooking the valley. Says The Canal Record: The old village of Gatun, which lay on the river flats below the present town was abandoned in 1908, and the site is now covered by 80 feet of rock and earth under Gatun Dam. At the time it was abandoned, the village contained a church, priest's house, school, a dozen small shops, and ninety or more small houses of all descriptions, from the bamboo hut with palm thatch to the typical sheet iron roof shanty. Most of the buildings were moved to the new townsite, now known as New Gatun. The railroad line also run through the dam site and as soon as the present line into Gatun was opened, this likewise was abandoned, and the station building was razed. By the middle of 1909 the last vestiges of the old village had disappeared before the encroaching work on the dam. The antiquity of the place is uncertain, because none of its buildings were of masonry. In his narrative of the pirate Morgan's march to Panama in August, 1770, Esquemeling says: "The first day they sailed only six leagues, and came to a place called De Los Bracos. Here a party of his men went ashore, only to sleep and stretch their limbs, being almost crippled with lying too much crowded in the boats. Having rested awhile, they went abroad to seek victuals in the neighboring plantations; but they could find none, the Spaniards being fled,and carrying with them all they had. The location on the river corresponds to that of Gatun, for six Spanish leagues equal about nine miles, and even if the situation of De Los Bracos is not identical with old Gatun the narrative indicates that the region thereabouts was somewhat settled. It is also known that the Spaniards had erected a fort on a hill 120 feet above the river, overlooking the town, which was probably one of the outposts they had established at various points along the isthmian trade routes. Evidences of the old fort are found today, and the site is shown on the original land map made for the Panama Railroad in 1855. At that time the village had about one hundred buildings of all kinds. Writing of it in 1861 Otis says it was a village composed of forty or fifty huts of cane and palm. In the early days of the California immigration it was the first stopping place in the canoe journey up the Chagres, where "bongo-loads" of California travelers used to stop for refreshments on their way up the river, and where eggs sold four for a dollar, and the rent for a hammock was two dollars a night." In 1881 the French chose Gatun as the site for one of the canal residencies, erected machine shops there, and built a number of quarters for laborers, calling the new section, "Cite de Lesseps." This continued as a center of the work of excavation until 1888, when all operations ceased, not to be resumed here until 1904. When the Americans arrived in 1904, Gatun was the center of a comparatively large river trade. Bananas and other produce from the Gatun, Trinidad, and Chagres Rivers, were brought there for transhipment by rail, and for sale. Once a week, a shipment of from seven to nine carloads of bananas was made, and on the shipping day, as many as a hundred canoes would tie up at Gatun. From: "The Panama Guide" by John O. Collins, 1912, I.C.C. Press, Quartermaster's Department, Mount Hope, C.Z. MATACHIN Matachin is the Spanish word for butcher, and this village, or the site of it, also appears on Esquemeling's map. Therefore the current Isthmian-folk etymology that is a combination of the words 'matar,' to kill, and 'Chino,' signifying a wholesale death among Chinese laborers engaged in the construction of the Panama Railroad is erroneous." For years this was the point at which trains from Panama to Colon passed those going the other way, and it had some local importance on that account, because the wait here often ran as high as half an hour. In the time of the first French company it was a labor camp, excavation was carried on here, and a few miles below, at the point they called Bas Matachin, the shops were situated. These shops have since been enlarged and refitted into the present Gorgona Shops. The Americans also did considerable excavation at this point. It is the starting place for canoe trips up the Chagres River. As soon as the Gorgona Shops are moved to Balboa, the cause of existence of Matachin as a camp of canal laborers will have ceased and the village will again sink into a hamlet. In 1908 Matachin had 2,042 inhabitants, of whom 698 were whites, but its population has greatly decreased since 1909, when excavation at this point was completed. BLACK SWAMP One other point in the lake region, on the abandoned line, is worthy the tourist's knowledge. In all but one spot the location along the river was good, and that spot lies about five miles south of Gatun and is known as the Black Swamp. It is simply a swamp over which it was difficult to construct a railroad line, because the weight of the embankment and of the rails and rolling stock was so great as to displace the light, water-impregnated material underneath. On this account the road sometimes sank into the swamp. This was particularly true when the Americans placed the new heavy rolling stock upon the railroad in 1905, and from that time until 1908 this section of the line required constant attention. In the effort to form a fill over which the trains could pass safely a number of old French dump-cars were thrown in bottom-up and thousands of tons of earth and rock were dumped there, only to sink into the swamp and afford but temporary relief. In 1908, however, the railroad engineers succeeded in constructing a trestle and filling it with cinder and other light material which successfully withstood the traffic up to the time when the railroad was abandoned in January, 1912. There is no subject on the Isthmus to which the chronic liar turns with greater joy than to the Black Swamp. The tourist will make a mistake in interrupting him or indicating in any way that he disbelieves the tales. Almost invariably they are untrue, but almost as invariably they are interesting. Soundings made in 1908 showed that the solid bottom beneath the swamp is 185 feet below the surface. It is an interesting comment on the stories that the watershed of the Chagres will not hold the water impounded by Gatun Dam, to know that this swamp has remained here, four feet above the level of the river, ever since the railroad was constructed in the middle of the last century. From: The Panama Guide by John O. Collins, I.C.C. Press, Quartermaster's Department, Mount Hope, C.Z., 1912. BARBACOAS Between Tabernilla and San Pablo the railroad crosses the Chagres River at Barbacoas. The original bridge was built of wood, but early in the history of the railroad it was replaced by a bridge of six wrought iron through-plate-girder spans ranging from 101 to 109 feet in length, supported upon seven masonry piers. This bridge is mentioned by Otis in 1862, and is said to have been one of the first of its type ever constructed. It was not built however to carry such heavy rolling stock as that placed on the road by the Americans, and so the three channel spans were replaced in 1908 by heavier girders, while the floor system of the three remaining spans of the old bridge were reinforced. SAN PABLO San Pablo (St. Paul) was originally a plantation worked by Catholic priests. It was a railroad station in 1862, was a laborer's camp in the French days, and during the American occupation has been a small canal village. it also is being demolished, and the last excavation in the lake region is now in progress there. Across the Chagres River from San Pablo is Caimito, one of the names found on Esquemeling's map. It was a canal labor camp in the French time and also under the Americans until the work at that point was finished. Of this class, also, is Mamei, likewise a railroad station in 1862, and little more than that today, although it was the location of several quarters for Canal workers a few years ago. GORGONA* [*Gorgona means sea-fan. The island off Colombia was named after the zoophyte. The whirlpool took its name from the island which it is near.] Gorgona bears the name given by Pizarro to an island off the coast of Colombia, near Buenaventura, because he found around it such treacherous currents. It may be that this name was adopted arbitrarily, or that the Chagres River travelers found in the river at this place some eddies that reminded them of the currents at Gorgona Island. Of this place Otis says: "The native town of Gorgona was noted in the earlier days of the river travel as the place where the wet and jaded traveler was accustomed to worry out the night on a rawhide, exposed to the insects and the rain, and in the morning if he was fortunate regale himself on jerked beef and plantains." In the French time large shops were situated here, at the point where the American shops now are, known as Bas Matachin. Gorgona should not be classed with Gatun and Bohio as a purely jungle hamlet, because it appears to have been a settlement of some size long before the railroad was built. It was one of the places at which the river travelers stopped for the night, and all about it were cultivated farms. At the time of the first Canal Zone census in 1908 its inhabitants numbered 1,065 whites, 1,646 blacks, and 39 Chinese a total of 2,750. The population has increased owing to the expansion of work in the shops. The site of the Shops and the lower parts of the village will be covered by the water of Gatun Lake, and there, the shops will be moved in about a year to the site reserved for the permanent marine shops at Balboa. BOHIO The next settlement of any importance up the river from Gatun is Bohio. Between these two villages are three hamlets—Lion Hill, Tiger Hill, and Ahorca Lagarto—none of them numbering over half a dozen huts and without any apparent reason for existing except that some natives happened to settle there. The two first mentioned are essentially railroad camps that have existed since 1851, when they were successively the terminus of the road. Ahorca Lagarto, however, is on a bend in the river, and may well have been a resting place for the cramped travelers in canoes. Of the origin of its name Otis says: "Ahorca Lagarto, 'to hang the lizard,' deriving its name from a landing-place on the Chagres near by; this again, named from having, years back, been pitched upon as an encampment by a body of government troops, who suspended from a tree their banner, on which was a lizard, the insignia of the order of Santiago," In 1908 it had sixty-two inhabitants, of whom three were white, two yellow, and the balance negro. Bohio appears to have been another bush hamlet in 1862 when Otis wrote. Until recently it has been called Bohio Soldado (Soldier's Home.) The French made it the site of one of their district headquarters in 1882, erected a machine shop on the west bank of the river and did considerable work there under the old sea-level plan for a canal, which was excavated to this place to a sufficient depth for light draft boats. here as well as at any place can be seen today the plan of the sea-level canal, which included the main channel and two large diversions of drainage ditches one on each side of the canal proper. Under the French plan for a lock canal, Bohio was the site for the first dam, and the excavation for the locks at this point can be seen in one of the hills on the opposite side of the river from the railroad. As it has existed during the American regime the village has been a relic from the French period. Such surveys, investigations, and excavation as were necessary here were done by men occupying the French houses. In recent years Bohio has been the center of a small local trade in vegetables, brought in from the jungle by canoe and pack animals, in exchange for groceries and liquors sold in the Chinese and native shops. At the time of the official census in 1908, it had 526 inhabitants, of whom 447 were colored and native, 69 white, and 10 Chinese. At Bohio the Americans carried on investigations in 1904 and 1905 to determine whether that location would be used for locks and a dam, and in 1909 excavation by hand and with steam shovel was carried on to remove a small hill and part of a dump made by the French, which stood in the canal prism. Across the river, where the machine shops were situated in the French days, and where they carried on work for the lock emplacement, the edge of a hill is now being removed by a contractor. The work at this point is typical of all that between Gatun and Culebra Cut, consisting as it does of the excavation of small elevations in the canal channel and the toes of the hills that project into the prism. Frijoles Near Bohio are the hamlets of Peñas Blancas and Buena Vista, both on the river, and each merely a collection of huts of various descriptions. Frijoles (beans) is the next railway station, a village of 784 inhabitants in 1908, of about a thousand when it became a center for relocation work on the Panama Railroad, now being rapidly deserted. Here for many years an old Frenchman ran a distillery in which he made rum of such good quality that he boasted that it was sold in Colon to rectifiers who made it into "genuine French cognac." One of the familiar sights of this hamlet is the village washing-place, a pool near the railroad tracks, formed by the swirling of the water in the Frijolita River at a point where it is turned at right angles to its previous course by the interposition of a bank of clay and rock. The method of washing clothes among the lower-class natives and West Indians can be observed here. This also is locally known as the place where one may buy bananas of peculiarly delicious flavor. Frijoles is mentioned in Otis' guide book published in 1862, but the next village, Tabernilla (little tavern), although it appears on the Harrison-Arosemena map, is not. Tabernilla It was one of the centers of the French works, and there was a small field repair shop at this point, with a few buildings that served as quarters for the working force. during the American occupation it became a village of over two thousand inhabitants (2,079 in 1908), because here is situated the largest dumping ground on the canal work. the location was chosen in 1906 because it is on the main line of the railroad, outside of the canal prism and afforded a plot of ground two miles long and almost as wide for wasting of spoil. In all about sixteen million cubic yards of material were wasted here, all of which will be below the level of the lake. The dump was abandoned at the close of 1910, and immediately the village population decreased, the people remaining there being largely employees with families who could not procure quarters elsewhere. These are now being moved because the demolition of the place is under way. From: The Panama Guide by John O. Collins, ICC Press, Quartermaster Division, Mount Hope, C.Z. 1912. GAMBOA Returning now to Gatun from a side trip that the tourist will hardly take, and yet which must be considered because of the historic interest of the old river towns and the former route of the railroad, the traveler takes the train over the new line of the Panama Railroad, known as the "relocation." From Gatun to Pedro Miguel the country through which the railroad runs is "new;" that is, it is jungle little touched by the transit life until January, 1912. There were settlers in the bush all along the river, but they make little impression on the jungle, merely planting a few vegetables, and making trails from their homes to the main trails. The village of Monte Lirio was a typical "bush" hamlet before the railroad work was begun, its houses of bamboo and thatch, or board and thatch, its streets muddy, and sanitary conveniences none. It drowses on in much that condition now, while near it is the new Monte Lirio, known as Mitchellville, so named after a foreman popular with the workers. At various points along the line, town sites have been laid out in order that people driven from their homes in the lake Region may have somewhere to rebuild. On either side of the train as it passes through this section may be caught pretty glimpses of the jungle, the trees and plants always green, those that dry up in the dry season being so few as to make little impression on the general color-scheme. One half mile north of Monte Lirio the railroad crosses an arm of Gatun Lake, which reaches up into Panama territory by way of the valley of the Gatun River. the bridge over this arm of the lake is 318 feet long and is built in three spans, two of them composed of fixed girders 103 feet long, and one of a bascule or lift span, which can be raised to let sips pass into the upper part of the lake. Gamboa The point where the railroad crosses the Chagres River is known as Gamboa (a fruit like the quince). The bridge is built on a curve and spans an opening 1,300 feet wide. the channel span is a 200-foot riveted truss, and it is connected with the banks by 14 rough-plate-girder spans, each 80 feet long. From the bridge one catches a glimpse of the northern entrance of Culebra Cut. A new townsite has been laid out at the northern end of the bridge. Pending the use of the relocated line between Gamboa and Paraiso, after the opening of the Canal, the trains leave the relocation here, back down across the dike that separates the excavation in Culebra Cut from the Chagres River, and run up the old line of the railway to Pedro Miguel. There is nothing of interest on the east side of Culebra Cut between Gamboa and Paraiso, except the jungle and glimpses of its primitive life, because all the canal villages are along the old line of the railroad on the west side of the canal. A paragraph will tell about each one as the tourist catches glimpses of them while his train speeds on. The Culebra Cut Villages Bas Obispo Obispo means "bishop." There are two hills at this point, one of them higher than the other, called Haut Obispo, while the lower is called Bas Obispo. The Obispo River flows into the Chagres at this point, and here in the days before the railway was built was a hamlet of natives. As explained at greater length in the section of this book on the canal, the Obispo Valley is utilized as the canal route to a point near the divide at Culebra. The hamlet was situated on the trail from Gorgona to Panama, was made a railroad station, and when the French began work was turned into a labor camp, with small shops. Excavation continued here on the sea-level plan until 1887, when the emplacement for locks was begun. Under the Americans the excavation was continued and Bas Obispo became a typical canal village. In 1908, it had 1,744 inhabitants; but its importance and size have dwindled rapidly since 1910, when the excavation was practically completed at this point. Bas Obispo Explosion This village will always be associated in the minds of Canal workers with the greatest accident that has occurred on the canal. In December, 1908, the work in Culebra Cut at this point had reached a stage where it became necessary to dig out the side of the rock hill that rises above the canal on the west bank. To this end, 53 holes were drilled along the edge of the hill, and into them was packed 44,000 pounds of 45-percent dynamite. It was planned to set off this charge after the men had quit work at 5 o'clock on the evening of December 12. The last hole was being tamped at 11:10 o'clock on the morning of the 12th, when one of them exploded, getting off the others. The side of the hill was thrown forward into the canal, as had been planned, but beneath it were buried several men on their way home to lunch, while many others were struck by flying rocks. In all twenty-six people were killed, and a dozen were permanently maimed. Camp Elliott Situated upon a hill at Bas Obispo is the camp of the Marine Corps, Camp Elliott. It is a tribute to the spirit of this corps of the service, that the pretty little settlement was laid out, streets made, and some of the buildings erected by the men of the command. A battalion of marines is stationed here. In the course of three years this camp will be abandoned for one at the Pacific entrance to the canal. From: The Panama Guide, by John O. Collins, ICC Press, Quartermaster Division, Mount Hope, C.Z., 1912 CASCADAS Every American in Panama delights in displaying his knowledge of Spanish to the tourist. Invariably this knowledge is only sufficient to enable him to get into trouble with a coachman and require a policeman to extricate him; but he supposes that the tourist knows nothing of this, and is duly complacent. Your guide is of that type. Right along he has been telling you the English translation of the Spanish names and will continue to do so. Las Cascadas, for instance, means "the waterfalls" or "cascades." Here the Obispo River formerly tumbled over a precipice forty feet high on its way to the Chagres, and here still tumbles down the water collected by the diversion canal on the west side of Culebra Cut. This village dates from the French times, when it became the site of a labor camp. Under the Americans it continued as one of the centers of canal life. Here were established an engine-house, where forty locomotives tie up for the night to be cleaned out and made ready for their morrow's work, and an air-compressor plant to supply air to the drills in the north end of Culebra Cut. It does not appear on the maps prior to 1880 and was not touched by the old trail that ran through Obispo on its way to Panama. In 1908, Las Cascadas had 2,425 inhabitants—957 whites, 1,424 blacks and 44 others. Camp Otis In 1911 the labor camp near Las Cascadas was turned over to the United States Army for a temporary post, and quarters were hastily devised to accommodate a regiment of infantry hurried down from the States for no particular purpose that was apparent. It was named Camp E. E. Otis, in honor of the Major General of that name. From: "The Panama Guide" by John O. Collins, 1912, I.C.C. Press, Quartermaster's Department, Mount Hope, C.Z. PEDRO MIGUEL Pedro Miguel and Miraflores date from French Canal times, and bear respectively the names Saint Peter Michael, and Miraflores, a distinguished Spanish soldier. At Pedro Miguel the French had two dredges in operation, and there they had made emplacements for their locks. Under the American plan, it is the site of the first flight of locks that will lower ships from the level of Gatun Lake to that of the Pacific. Here is an engine house where as many as eighty locomotives tie up for the night. One of the most interesting sights on the canal is watching these locomotives leave the engine house for their work in the morning. The first one leaves about 6.30 o'clock, and the last is clear of the yards ten minutes later. Pedro Miguel had 1,623 population in 1908. At Miraflores also the French had a small settlement, and this has been continued by the Americans, largely as a labor camp. Here are being constructed two of the locks required in completing the descent to the level of the Pacific, begun at Pedro Miguel. These locks will be the last finished and they are therefore the most interesting sight on the Canal work, because more kinds of work are in progress here than elsewhere. From: "The Panama Guide" by John O. Collins, 1912, I.C.C. Press, Quartermaster's Department, Mount Hope, C.Z. MORE ON PEDRO MIGUEL Peter Magill it has been for many years and Peter Magill it will probably continue to be as long as there is a Pedro Miguel and Americans here to mispronounce its name. It is even spelled "Peter Magill" in some official records. The origin of Pedro Miguel's name is a matter of argument among its residents. Adrien Bouche, who has lived there for many years, grew up on the story that Pedro Miguel was the name of a railroad section foreman. There wasn't much of a town in early railroad days so the stop was known as Pedro Miguel's cabin. Others believe that the town's name is properly San Pedro Miguel - St. Peter Michael - which was the Spanish name for the river. Certainly an 1867 history of the railroad refers to the San Pedro Miguel River, "a narrow tidewater tributary of the Rio Grande," which the railroad crossed on an iron bridge. Pedro Miguel was off the beaten path of trans-Isthmian travelers of the Spanish colonial days. There was probably a fair sized settlement in the general area; during canal construction days ruins of a large old Spanish church were found not far from Pedro Miguel. Indian artifacts discovered in Pedro Miguel's hills prove even earlier habitation. FRENCH THERE IN 1888 French canal forces started work at Pedro Miguel on January 15, 1888. In May of that year the site, where one lock was to be built, was one-third excavated. Later the New French Canal Company modified the plans and decided that two locks would be built at the Pedro Miguel location. There could not have been much of a settlement at Pedro Miguel, however, for when the Isthmian Canal Commission began to take stock in 1904-5 of property taken over from the French Company it found at Pedro Miguel nine usable buildings and three in such bad condition they were destroyed. One of the old French buildings became a police station, another a commissary, and others were used as quarters. Mr. Bouche says that one of these old quarters is still standing on Miraflores Street near the Boy Scout Shack. He identifies it from its brick underpinnings. Early in 1905 Chief Engineer John F. Wallace wrote Governor George W. Davis: "Pedro Miguel is the point, you know, where the principal line from the east side of the south end of Culebra Cut joins the main line of the Panama Railroad and I desire to establish here the headquarters of the men employed in the transportation and excavating work in this general vicinity." (The present road to the Cucaracha signal station is a part of the old railroad bed.) Kitchens, a mess hall, a "hotel," a post office, and bachelor barracks began to rise, all west of the present railroad line. The work was considered so urgent that later that year Governor Davis asked that "work on Corozal quarters be suspended and Pedro Miguel pushed forward." Although the ICC selected Pedro Miguel as the site of one set of locks, after a lock-type canal was decided on in 1906, Pedro Miguel remained primarily a railroad center. A nine-track railroad yard, a coaling plant and a repair shop were built that year, and at Pedro Miguel President Theodore Roosevelt made his first stop when he toured the construction line in November 1906. It is pretty certain that all of Pedro Miguel's 754 residents, 79 of them Americans, turned out to welcome him. Most of the construction force lived at Corozal, if they were Americans, Mr. Bouche recalls, or at "40-mile Camp" which was practically part of Pedro Miguel or at one or another of the nearby "silver" construction camps if they were non-Americans. In 1908, however, the Pedro Miguel mess for European laborers was enlarged to accommodate 450 men; it was the largest in the Canal Zone at the time. In 1912, John O. Collins described Pedro Miguel: "Here is an engine house where as many as 80 locomotives tie up for the night. One of the most interesting sights on the Canal is watching these locomotives leave the engine house for their work in the morning. The first one leaves about 6:30 am and the last is clear of the yards 10 minutes later." Pedro Miguel was even then becoming modern. It had had electricity since 1907. In 1908 there were 491 pupils in the Pedro Miguel school; the lone high school student had to travel to Empire for his classes. A commissary, which served all employees, was approximately where a large storehouse now stands on the road to the Boat Club. A volunteer fire company protected the town and a Commission truck garden supplied fresh vegetables. In 1909 there was some excitement when a slide in the locks excavation swallowed up a chicken house tree belonging to one of the cottages. The house, left only four feet from the slide, was moved hurriedly. For a description of Pedro Miguel life in the late construction days, the Review turned to Mrs.Eula J. Ewing, who lived in Pedro Miguel from 1911 until her retirement in 1952. For many years she wrote a column of Pedro Miguel events for the Star & herald. From her present home in Romany, W.Va., she wrote: "There was no legitimate Clubhouse in Pedro Miguel before the one from Gorgona was brought there in 1914, but we did have a social hall which was over the old mess hall. This stood on the old road near what is now the junction of Gaillard Highway and Rio Grande Street. There our Sunday School was held, also church services whenever we could secure a minister which was once every three or four months. Once or twice a year, a Lyceum Company which was brought down from the States by the old ICC gave a program here, and here we also held our dances. The first Christmas program in Pedro Miguel was presented here in 1901. Miss Mildred Greene, sister of J. Wendell Greene (who retired as Treasurer of the Panama Canal Company, in 1952), and I trained the other children. We trimmed a small orange tree with popcorn strings and paper chains, lighted it with old-fashioned wax candles and called it our Christmas tree. Incinerator Point- it was called that because the incinerator for the disposal of garbage was located on the point of land which jutted out into the water-was down where the SIP quarters on Frog Alley now stand, facing the lake. Old Man Campbell, as we used to call him-I believe his name was John-had a chicken farm there and beyond it a narrow swinging bridge crossed the Pedro Miguel River to the native huts which were grouped on the other side. There dances were held in the evenings to the music of tom-toms. The area where the Lodge Hall now stands and the land immediately below it was once a native village, with thatched roof huts; I remember it was a pleasant sight in the evening to see the light of their fires and to hear their voices raised in plaintive songs." CHRISTMAS ON STILTS "On Christmas morning, dressed in grotesque costumes, they would stalk through the townon stilts. Some of the stilts were so tall the people on them could look into upstairs apartments. Later in the day, they drove or led a giant tapir up to their village where it was killed and roasted over an open fire and a great fiesta was held. The present Boat Clubgrew out of the old El Kego Club, which met in a thatched roof shed which stood near the present location of the Boat Club. The men selected this spot, isolated as it was, so that their noise would not annoy residents of the town. Here they enjoyed their keg of beer and passed the hat to defray the cost. Its fame spread until the Boat Club was organized to take care of the crowd. Al Meigs was one of the organizers and perhaps did more for the club than any other man. He was ably assisted by Jack Reinig, J.C. Ewing, S.B. Bubb, Adam Mallett, Adam Dorn, Harry Groschup, and many others. The old police station, which was brought from Gorgona, stood on the left of Front Street, as you walked from the railroad station to the clubhouse. In the early days, a stable for the horses stood in the rear of the building. The concrete base and the steps leading to the station are all that remain today. In the early days we made our own entertainment. We used to put on plays, give programs, hold dances. There was the Ladies' Aid Society and the Woman's Club. We often attended dances at Gorgona and Empire in a labor car hitched to an engine. Some engineer would volunteer to run the engine there but wouldn't guarantee to bring it back. Perhaps another one who had celebrated less would make the return trip with us." AFTER CONSTRUCTION DAYS Pedro Miguel Locks were the second to be started. Concreting there began in September 1909, a week after pouring had started at Gatun. A little over three years later, Pedro MiguelLock gates were closed and opened for the first time. The Canal Record reports that gates in the east chamber were first operated November 16, 1912; they were set in motion by the little son -unnamed- of Congressman John J. Fitsgerald, an Isthmian visitor. The first lockage, however, was not made until October 24, 1913. As construction ended, plans were made for the future of Pedro Miguel. In June 1912, a committee appointed to choose sites for permanent town sites recommended that the operating force of the Pacific Locks should be housed in one settlement, and chose a location on the east side of Pedro Miguel Locks. As it was then planned, the town was to house 62 American and 162 alien workers and their families. Eventually, but only after considerable heated correspondence between the landscape architect and town site engineers, a new Pedro Miguel began to take form. The commissary, police station, and clubhouse were transferred from Gorgona; the center of population shifted from the west side of the railroad to the east. An old barracks building was converted to quarters for "lady bachelors," because, the Pedro Miguel quartermaster said, "it appears that there will always be at least seven or eight lady bachelors in Pedro Miguel." The big house formerly occupied by W.G. Comber, Superintendent of Dredging at Paraiso, was moved to a site uphill from the clubhouse. Its most recent occupant was Truman Hoenke, Pacific Locks Superintendent. Previous occupants were the Roy Stockhams, J.C. Myricks, and John G. Claybourns. New quarters were built along the newly-made streets; nine houses were moved to Pedro Miguel from Las Cascadas. A restaurant was opened in thebuilding which now houses the postoffice, clubhouse luncheonette, and barber shop. Some years later a dozen cottages and four two-family houses were brought from Gaillard and Empire and rebuilt in the swampy area near the lake; it is known to all old Pedro Miguelites as Frog Alley. The present fire station was not built until 1932, and the police station, now officially the Canal Zone Prison for Women and Juveniles, in 1934. PLANS FOR NEW TOWN In 1938 the Pedro Miguel Civic Council, an active group which is just now planning the third annual town fair and is, incidentally, the only council with junior members, asked for a relocation of the entire town. For two years they argued their case and finally, in April 1941, the Governor approved a p A few quarters were built to house people working on Special Improvement Projects for the locks, but Pearl Harbor canceled out all plans for a new town. Pedro Miguel took on the look of an armed camp. Barrage ballons flew above the locks. An anti-dive bomber net stretched across the canal between the hills. Its effectiveness was tragically proved when a low-flying U.S. plane tangled in the dangling cables and crashed to the canal bank. Baffles of corrugated metal enclosed the locks. Smokepots burned from time to time along the main streets, too often, housewives complained, on laundry days. Air-raid shelters were built in the hills behind the town, one of them near a neglected old cemetery which, Mrs. Ewing says "did a flourishing business during construction days." Its graves and their markers are again overgrown with grass. A USO unit was set up in the basement of the Union Church. The women of Pedro Miguel took pride in learning their service friends' birthdays. There was always a birthday cake for each one and the women saw to it that he was there to enjoy it, even if it meant going to his colonel to get him a pass. Today Pedro Miguel's future is limited. Present plans call for its discontinuance as a Canal Zone community by the end of March of next year. The old quarters there will be torn down and only a few of the permanent buildings such as the police and fire stations will remain. Eventually people may say: "There Pedro Miguel used to be." Pedro Miguel diehards still like their town, rundown at the heels as it is; of course, they would like more modern housing. A little over a year ago 110 families -out of 184 employees-petitioned that Pedro Miguel be retained and rebuilt in its present location. Possibly, Mrs. Ewing expresses what many of them feel: "I have always loved the town and have gone over its streets, its homes, and all they contained again and again in my memeories since I left there." RAINBOW CITY The name of Silver City, including Camp Coiner, will be changed to Rainbow City. By an overwhelming majority, residents of the area chose the most colorful of six names offered for voting and Governor Newcomer has issued a circular officially designating the area Rainbow City. The change in names was made effective May 1. The public poll on the selection of a name was the first ever held in the Canal Zone and met with great appeal to the residents. As expressed in the official report of the Tally Committee to the Governor: "The voting fever was high and the entire townsite on the evening of the 17th had the pleasant air of a country election." The official count, as reported by Judge E.I.P. Tatelman, Chairman of the Tally Committee, was: Rainbow City, 771; Silver City, 256; Granada, 74; Manzanillo, 72; Folks City, 55; and Mindi, 7. Sixteen ballots were incorrectly marked or otherwise made invalid. ELECTION VERY POPULAR Few popular elections ever reach the proportions of returns as did the Silver City-Rainbow City-Camp Coiner voting. Of the total of approximately 1,280 ballots distributed to those with quarters' assignments there, all but 30 were returned. Nearly one-third of the ballots were marked and returned the same afternoon they were distributed by the five International Boy Scout Troops. The voting for the name of the Canal Zone's largest civilian community was sponsored by The Panama Canal Review with the cooperation of the International Boy Scouts. The votes were distributed April 17 and were collected the following Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. The distribution and collection of ballots was handled under the direction of William Jump, President of the International Boy Scout Council in the Canal Zone, who also served as a member of the Tally Committee. The five scout troops and Scoutmasters from Silver City and Camp Coiner participating were: Troop 1, David Stanley; Troop 2, Charles Lucas; Troop 4, Daniel T. Foster; Troop 12, Romeo G. Miller, who also serves as District Commissioner; and Troop 13, V.A. Laing. Approximately 200 Boy Scout members of these five troops helped in the distribution and collection. The Governor authorized the popular vote on the name of the town after residents nicknamed that part of Silver City being built as "Rainbow City" because of the various colors of the houses. The other four names shown on the ballots were selected for the following reasons: Mindi and Folks City, for the two small rivers in that area; Manzanillo, for the island on which Cristobal-Colon is built; and Granada, which was the former name of Colombia. Silver City, which was built during the early 1920's, was never officially named, while Camp Coiner was so named while occupied by the Army Engineers during the past war. COROZAL This village is the headquarters of the Pacific Division, and the long low building on the knoll east of the railroad is the office of the Division, Engineer, Mr. S. B. Williamson. Near it is the residence of the Assistant Division Engineer, Mr. J. M. G. Watt. It had 661 inhabitants in 1908 and has about a thousand now. The name means a clump of coroso palms. The village is mentioned before the founding of New Panama. Ancon If your train happens to be the one that enters Panama at night, you will see, as it approaches the city, the lights of what appears to be a scattered village at the base of a big hill. These are the lights of Ancon, the American settlement suburban to the city of Panama. It is named Ancon after the hill on whose terraced slope it is built, and the name means a roadstead or anchorage. It does not appear that there was any settlement here, according to old maps, until the place was chosen by the French Canal Company in 1881 as the site for its general hospital Ancon Hospital The terracing of the slope was then begun, and many of the buildings one sees there today were constructed by the French and used by them all during their twenty-three years of canal work. In the light of the time the hospital was well run, the main difference being in the knowledge of the mosquito theory as applied to malaria and yellow fever. When the Americans came to Panama in 1904 some of the beds in the wards were standing in cups of water to keep the ants from crawling upon the patients, and in this water mosquitoes of both the stegomyia and anopheles varieties were breeding. The hospital is under the superintendence of Lieut. Co. Charles F. Mason of the Army Medical Corps, has a staff of 33 doctors and 90 nurses, and will accommodate easily 1,300 patients, and by crowding can be made to accommodate 700 more. To the tourist, the most interesting things about the hospital are the pretty grounds, the pajamaed patients sitting on the screened balconies or strolling about the grounds, and the many varieties of tropical plants. These plants have been catalogued by Colonel Mason, and most of the trees and shrubs are labeled. Some Ancon People The atmosphere of the hospital dominates Ancon, because, of course, that is the principal of the place. Well, do you know, there are some well-bathed Americans working in that hospital who have never seen Gatun Locks except from the car windows, have an idea that Culebra Cut is the name of a choice piece of meat sold only to high officials, and believe, that the United States is constructing a sea-level canal in Panama! Administration Building The Administration Building, on one of the knolls at the foot of the hill, is the only good building erected by the Americans in Panama. It is of concrete block, and was originally designed to be the residence of the Governor of the Canal Zone. This plan was abandoned in 1906 on account of the cost of maintaining such an establishment. Here are the administratives of the Department of Sanitation, the Department of Civil Administration, and the Secretary of the Commission, the publication office of The Canal Record and the Official Handbook. The view from the upper balcony of this building is probably the best that be obtained of the Bay of Panama, the city, and the nearby hills without a toilsome climb up Ancon Hill itself. Supreme Court The office of the Supreme Court is in Ancon, immediately back of the Post Office. Hotel Tivoli The Hotel Tivoli was built for the threefold purpose of furnishing quarters to employees who had arrived on the Isthmus and had no quarters assigned to them, for the use of persons whose business with the canal administration forced them to come to the isthmus, and the recreation of employees, whose chief dissipation is a trip to the city about once a fortnight. To further this latter end, a dance hall containing 3,200 square feet of space was constructed, and an organization of employees known as the Tivoli Club is given the privilege of holding a dance here the second and fourth Saturdays of each month. The building was begun in August, 1905, and opened to the public on January 1, 1907, although a part of it was used in November, 1906, for the entertainment of President Roosevelt, on the occasion of his visit to the Isthmus. It is situated on a knoll named after the Tivoli Hill of Rome, and overlooks the city of Panama and part of the bay. It is built in three sides of a rectangle, the main part being the base, and the two wings the sides. The open court in front is occupied by a carriage-way and flower-bed. In 1912 an addition was made, which increased the sleeping accommodations from 180 guest-rooms to 220, and the dining-room accommodations from 400 to 700 persons. The building is 314 feet long, wings 156 feet deep, and courtyard in front 193 feet across and 91 feet deep. This hotel has lately become more for transients than for people resident on the isthmus, because the tourist trade has increased so rapidly in the past two years. yet it is still the place where bachelors from the canal villages come to get a different kind of meal from that served in the messes, where concerts are given by the official band once each month to balconies crowded with canal workers, and where the best dances on the Isthmus are held. From: "The Panama Guide" by John O. Collins, 1912, I.C.C. Press, Quartermaster's Department, Mount Hope, C.Z. ANCON Ancon Hill Ancon Hill is 664 feet high above mean tide. After one climbs half way to the top it seems like six thousand feet, and by the time he has reached the summit it feels like six million. The climb is worthwhile, however. Start about day break, spend half an hour on the ascent, an hour on the top, and half an hour on the descent, and you will be home in time for breakfast, and none the worse for the trip. It is a rapid ascent that tires one. From the top there stretches such a view as cannot be equaled on the isthmus, and I am told that it cannot be surpassed anywhere. Out to sea is the waveless bay, dotted with islands; farther away are Taboga and its sister peaks rising out of the water, with their little settlements at the base of the hills; and towards the east the long line of the coast stretches away to Darien. Behind are the hills, at one's feet the city of Panama and the entrance to the canal, and northward the eye can follow the valley of the Rio Grande to the point where the line of the canal is lost in the foothills of the cordillera. Its view so charmed the first American Canal builders that there was talk of building the village of Ancon on top of the hill and providing moving stairs for the ascent. Ancon Quarry Rock for the concrete at Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks is quarried from the side of Ancon Hill, where a series of benches or inclines has been excavated from 180 to 375 feet above sea level. The rock is loosened by dynamite, and then excavated by steam-shovel, and loaded upon cars which run down to the crusher-plant which is situated below the 180foot level. There the cars dump into a hopper, from which the large rock passes by gravity to a crusher capable of taking a piece of rock 36 inches in cube, and the smaller rock passes to four secondary crushers, which also crush the product of the large crusher. From the secondary crushers the rock passes to storage bins, whence it is loaded by gravity upon cars, which convey it to the locks. Balboa The name Balboa, as applied to the village at the Pacific entrance to the Canal, dates from April 30, 1909, when, at the insistence of the Peruvian Minister to Panama, the Hon. Alfonso Pezet, Colonel Goethals issued a circular directing that the old village of La Boca be called Balboa. La Boca (the mouth) was the name applied to the hamlet which grew up at the mouth of the Rio Grande, where there was a crossing of the old trail that runs from Panama to the villages west of that city. The French, as the Americans have done, used the valley of the Rio Grande as the southern end of their canal line, and in 1881 they began to erect shops here at which their dredges from Scotland and Belgium (all but one erected on the isthmus) could be set up. the shops were well equipped for the time and the work they had to do. Naturally a village sprang up, composed of the shop and dredgemen. La Folie Dingler On the side of Ancon Hill overlooking the Pacific entrance, Jules Dingler, Director General of the canal work, erected a spacious house in 1885, but soon after his wife and two children arrived here they died from yellow fever, before the house was ready for occupancy, so he did not live there, returning to France in June, 1885. It was a big frame structure that is said to have cost $125,000. It was used later as a hospital for Colombian troops, and from 1904 to 1910 was used by the Americans as a quarantine station. In February 1910, it was sold for $525, on condition that the buyer would remove it. This was to make way for Ancon Quarry. The house was called "Dingler's Folly." Present and Future of Balboa In 1899 the terminal pier of the Panama Railroad was opened to traffic, and since then the village has been both a canal and railway settlement. The American Canal work required the enlargement of the marine shops and this was begun in 1905 for the purpose of rebuilding some of the old French dredges. The dredging and machine-shop work are now carried on under the direction of Mr. W.G. Comber, resident engineer, and James Macfarlane, superintendent of dredging. At this point there is now in progress the erection of terminal docks, and the construction of a dry dock and coal supply station. In the course of 1913 construction of the buildings for the Army and Navy headquarters will probably be begun. While most of the canal villages are looking backward on their glory, Balboa is looking forward to a larger population, more work, and greater importance than it has yet known. END of Train Ride Across the Isthmus!! From: The Panama Guide by John O. Collins, ICC Press, Quartermaster Division, Mt. Hope, CZ, 1912. Courtesy of CZ Brats www.czbrats.com
