The French Attempt to Build a Canal at Panama

As soon as the Spanish realized how narrow the Panamanian isthmus really was, they began exploring ways to cross it. They surveyed the area in 1534 (ironically choosing a course very much like that of today's waterway), but it wasn't until the 1820s that European efforts to dig a canal really took off. Steam technology had eliminated the need for towpaths -- the narrow, level paths that flank a river or canal and allow horses, mules and even men to tow craft along. Canal construction had subsequently exploded, and entrepreneurs were eager to open up the next great waterway.

But a Panamanian canal wasn't yet a given. Two isthmian routes -- one through Panama, the other through Nicaragua -- were considered right up into the 20th century. That the French (and ultimately the Americans) chose a route through Panama was due partly to the 1855 opening of a Panamanian railway -- the first to connect the coasts of a continent. In its incomplete form, the railway even played a part in the gold rush, carrying eager '49ers embarking from the U.S. East coast and headed to California.

But the French also chose Panama over Nicaragua because they believed it could support a sea-level canal, or canal without locks. Locks are used to carry a waterway over uneven terrain by raising and lowering the water level in a series of steplike chambers. A canal without locks simply carves through the terrain -- maintaining the same water level from start to finish. Although the French eventually realized it's extremely difficult to cut through the Continental Divide, they abandoned the plan too late to save the effort from failure.

Locks

French construction was financed by private investors and run by the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique, which had been given permission to build by the Colombian government that controlled the area. The famous hero of the Suez Canal in Egypt, Ferdinand de Lesseps, managed the company and was responsible for persisting in the sea-level plan. His triumphant experience at Suez made him blasé about Panama's geographical challenges. In reality, the 40-mile (64-km) isthmus was studded with a mountain range, choked with jungle, plagued by mosquitoes and subject to the powerful fluctuations of the Chagres River.

Also, the construction plan of the Compagnie Universelle was hazy and poorly planned. The machinery was often too light for the massive task of mountain-moving. And worst of all, thousands of people were unable to withstand the harsh climate and tropical fevers. It's impossible to say how many people died over the course of the French effort, as the hospitals didn't keep records, but it's estimated that 22,000 lost their lives [source: Panama Canal Authority].

The Disaster at Darién
The French weren't the only ones to sink money into the isthmus with no return. In the early 1700s, a Scottish settlement set up camp at Darién, intending to trade. But since both English and Spanish merchants placed an embargo on the settlers, business was decidedly bad. Two thousand people died from fever or starved to death, and on a wider scale, private investments depleted Scotland's savings and hurried the country's eventual merging with Great Britain.

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Although de Lesseps eventually accepted the impossibility of a sea-level canal and commissioned Gustav Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) to construct a series of locks, it was too late for the inefficient French effort. By 1888, the Compagnie Universelle crashed, leaving its principals slapped with lawsuits and a nation of disappointed investors.

So how did the United States gain control of the isthmus, and why was the takeover so controversial?