Apr 18, 2018 · The Panama Canal was built by thousands of contract workers, mostly from the Caribbean. To them, the Culebra Cut was “Hell’s Gorge.”

Apr 3, 2011 · Although the ICC made significant improvements in the second half of the U.S. construction period, treacherous construction methods and deadly diseases took their toll: at least 25,000 workers died during the combined French and U.S. construction periods of …

Jan 21, 2025 · The collection consists of an index & images of employee records (service history cards), sailing lists of contract laborers, and employee identification records (metal check cards and applications). This collection corresponds to NARA Record Group 185, Records of the Panama Canal, 1848-1999.

Jan 27, 2015 · To assist these researchers, I will be offering several “how to blogs” on records in NARA’s custody that concern Panama Canal employees. The blogs will discuss such records as personnel, marriage, birth, and death, where they are located, and how to search and request information from these records.

Jul 10, 2024 · FACT: Panama Canal worker mortality down 99.9% from the 1906-1914 project to the 2006-2016 expansion. To build the Panama Canal, 56,000 workers dug a trench 41 feet deep across 48 miles of peninsula, including a rock ridge 275 feet high and 8 miles across.

Oct 25, 2021 · A staggering 25,000 workers lost their lives. And artificial limb makers clamored for contracts with the canal builders.

Jan 27, 2013 · Thousands of people worked in the Panama Canal Zone between 1904 and 1914, and the surviving court records are the most important source of information for learning about their lives there. (106-RC-226) In Record Group 185, Records of the Panama Canal Zone, the National Archives has only Panama Canal Zone marriage certificates through 1979.

Aug 31, 2021 · In honor of the first International Day for People of African Descent, we celebrate the extraordinary contributions of the thousands of West Indian workers and others of African descent who have participated in the construction, maintenance, defense, and operation of the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone.

Jun 17, 2024 · Where did Panama Canal workers come from? The majority of the laborers who worked on the Panama Canal came from the West Indies, particularly from the sugar-producing island of Barbados. By 1907, the labor force consisted of 24,000 men, with more than 75% of them coming from the West Indies.

On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened, after 32 years of construction and an estimated 28,000 worker deaths. The 51-mile canal, an engineering and construction marvel,...