President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian Chief of
Government Omar Torrijos signed the Panama Canal Treaty and Neutrality Treaty on September 7, 1977. This agreement relinquished American control over the canal in 2000 and guaranteed its neutrality. On May 4, 1904, Panama granted the United States the right to build and operate the canal and control the five miles of land on either side of the water passage in exchange for annual payments. John F. Stevens, chief engineer of the U.S. Isthmian Canal Commission, drafted the final construction plan in 1906. On August 15, 1914, the canal opened to traffic. Ships passing through the lakes and locks travel approximately 51 miles between the Atlantic Ocean entrance and the Pacific Ocean entrance, eliminating the lengthy and often precarious 8000-nautical-mile trip around South America's Cape Horn.
America celebrated the opening of the canal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. The event marked both the triumph of the waterway's engineering and the emergence of modern San Francisco newly rebuilt after the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire. The fair attracted more than 18 million people during its eleven-month run.
- View The Story of the Panama Canal, a seven-part film documenting the work of building the canal and showing the waterway in operation. Search the collection Theodore Roosevelt: His Life and Times on Film on Panama.
- Watch early film stars Mabel Normand and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle frolic at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. On April 22, 1915, the Keystone Film Company produced Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco. Search the collection Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire: Early Films of San Francisco, 1897-1916 on Fatty.
- Examine additional photographic images of the canal and its construction in:
