Gatún

Gatun (Spanish: Gatún) is a small town on the Atlantic Side of the Panama Canal, located south of the city of Colón at the point in which Gatun Lake meets the channel to the Caribbean Sea. The town is best known as the site of the Panama Canal's Gatun Locks and Gatun Dam, built by the United States between 1906-1914.

The name “El Gatún” appears in Spanish colonial era maps as the name of a village and river, though its uncertain when exactly the area was populated or named. The village was located on the west bank of the Chagres River near its present-day location.

In 1671, the British pirate Henry Morgan and his men bivouacked close to Gatún after sacking and burning down the old Panama City.

In the mid-19th century, Gatún was described as a sleepy village of 40 or 50 cane huts, on the edge of a broad savannah. On a hill overlooking the river were ruins of an old Spanish fort.

The California Gold Rush of 1849 brought about dramatic changes to the isthmus of Panama, particularly to Gatún. All over Panama, rates for meals and lodging shot up overnight, fueled by increased demand and gold fever. Travelers going upriver on the Chagres stopped through Gatún, paying $2 a night for a hammock before proceeding on the often dangerous barge trip and overland mule ride to Panama City, from where they sailed on to San Francisco.

To meet the demand of travelers rushing to California, a group of New York financiers formed the Panama Railroad Company and set about to construct the first railroad connecting the Atlantic and Pacific. When work began in 1850, ships carried machinery, provisions and workers up the Chagres as far as Gatún. From there, they worked their way back up through the swamp toward the railroad’s Atlantic terminus on Manzanillo Island (now Colón). The first stretch of rail from Manzanillo Island to Gatun was completed in 1851. Construction was completed in 1854 and the first train completed the journey from coast to coast in January 1855, passing by Gatún. After 1869, with the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States, traffic on the Panama Railroad decreased and the town’s main role was as a river trading post for bananas and other crops grown inland and brought by barge to be transported to larger markets by rail.

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