PANAMA CANAL SPOONS
The 48 mile ship canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was
one of the largest most difficult engineering projects that was ever
undertaken.
Boats sailing thru majestic mountains of mud deny the reality
that 268 million cubic yards of dirt were removed by hundreds of
thousands of laborers including the
death of more than 27000 due to landslides, yellow fever and malaria.
The USA began work on the project in 1904, but the canal was not
completed until August 15, 1914 (the 100th anniversary will be later
this year--written in 2014)
The immensity of this project cannot be appreciated until one has
actually visited the canal and seen the huge Lake Gatun and all of the
supporting structures
that are necessary to make this a functioning shortcut for global
transportation.
The canal greatly reduced the time it would take ships to travel from
the east coast of the USA to the west coast and was expected to
be a major benefit
to the western United States. It has fully lived up to those
expectations.
In anticipation of the opening of the Panama Canal, two worlds fairs
were
held -- one in San Francisco and one in San Diego in 1915
and you can see the spoons
from those fairs
by clicking here.
Teddy Roosevelt told the chief engineer of the Panama Canal project to
"Make the dirt fly"
This slogan became very popular and an advertising campaign to hire
workers for the Panama Canal Project
made the phrase a household word.
sterling spoons
spoon dated 1915 depicting a ship transiting the Panama Canal
Shovel shaped spoon bowl --"make the dirt fly"
sterling spoon with 5 centavo stamp picturing a map of Panama
I found an American made spoon about the Panama Canal. This is one
of those
spoons with lots of small pictures on both the front and back. I have
enlarged
three of the six pictures for you. I do not believe that this spoon is
from
the Pan Pacific Expo, but it was probably a souvenir from someone's
trip
through the canal.
left: front of handle
right: the Culebra Cut was the most extensive earth
moving project
in history and was the most important part of the canal.
left: lock gates--These were the most sophisticated water gating
system in
the world and were in use for over 65 years
Visit the Pan Pacific Interntional Exposition
spoons
Return to spoon planet exhibits