The Pedro Miguel lock was one of three constructed for the Panama Canal so that ships could navigate the change in levels between the oceans. Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, who favored Panama, persuasively argued that a Nicaraguan canal would be longer, with more locks, and that engineers preferred a Panama route.
Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
The Gates, Pedro Miguel Lock, lithograph by Joseph Pennell, 1912
The Panama Canal
By the 1880s Congress considered a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans necessary for commerce and defense, but disagreements about its location stalled any action. Then the USS Maine exploded in Cuba. The battleship USS Oregon, stationed on the West Coast, took two months to reach the Caribbean to provide support in the Spanish-American War. The long voyage convinced Congress that a canal was imperative. In 1902 Congress authorized the purchase of a project initiated by France on land owned by Colombia, to complete construction of the Panama Canal.
I want . . . a bill to be passed here under which we will get a canal. There never was greater need for it than now. The Oregon demonstrated [that] to our people.
Senator John Spooner of Wisconsin, Speech to the U.S. Senate, June 18, 1902
The Pedro Miguel lock was one of three constructed for the Panama Canal so that ships could navigate the change in levels between the oceans. Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, who favored Panama, persuasively argued that a Nicaraguan canal would be longer, with more locks, and that engineers preferred a Panama route.
Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
