When asked about his plans for Panama in 1904 and bullion Teddy Roosevelt declared. I’m going to make the dirt fly, but first eh sent an army doctor Col. William Gorgas to eliminate the yellow fever epidemics that had doomed earlier French efforts.

Gorgas declared war on the local mosquitoes and within a year. The yellow fever threat was gone. Then workers in the command of Col George Washington Goethals blasted and dug their way through the Cordillera mountains, carving a 9 mile long canyon called the Culebra Cut. For over 6 years the giant steamed shovels dug without pause fulfilling the railroad cart every 8 minutes. The train rolls as far north as the mouth of the Shagris river where there are loads were use to build the gigantic platoon down.

Lots big enough to lift battle ships were build at the Atlantic and Pacific ends of the canal. Finally, on June 27th 1913 the dam was closed in the largest man-made lake in history filled flowing to Culebra cut ,connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by a slender but navigable thread.