3.02 Newspaper ArticlePanama Canal
HISTORY OF PANAMA CANAL
There was problems before the start of the Spanish-American War and because of that the USS Oregon had to leave California and go back to Cuba. The trip was more than 14,000 miles long and took about 60 days total. If you ask me, that sounds like a horrible trip to take, especially on a boat in the middle of the sea. But by the time the boat had reached Cuba, war with Spain had already started.
After this very long journey, Americans were convinced that they needed an easier way to move about the sea. A couple of routes had been considered in the 1800s but the final decision was the route going through Panama because there already was a Panama Railway.
There were many attempts on building the Panama Canal. Building such a huge idea would take a lot of time, good ideas, and a good plan to tackle the idea. One man that strongly supported the building of the canal was Theodore Roosevelt. He believed that the United States needed a strong presence on Latin America, and the Panama Canal would achieve that, and in 1902, the Spooner Act was passed by Congress.
Construction on the new canal started in 1904 and wasn't finished until 1914 and as many as 40,000 workers worked on it throughout those years. The canal started to flood so they had to build a dam to stop the water from ruining all of their hard work. The dam worked very well but did take up a lot of time in building the canal. The Panama Canal was