Photo of the Week
January 24, 2021

This week we continue with the Robert Bodle photo collection taken during the construction of the U.S. Canal in Panama.  These two photos interested me enough to post this week.  When I scanned the above negative I was surprised to see these people heading down into the diggings on horseback.  Out of the thousands of photos of the cut being dug I have looked at through the years, I have never seen horses in the cut. The person with the white head covering is a women and  the men seem to be dressed too well to be diggers.  My thought is that this group of people are food peddlers. They have large baskets bags on the sides of the horse to carry something.  Maybe food.  Interesting photo.

In the photo below, we have people walking in both directions on the main railroad line including another horse with large bundles strapped on back. The power or telegraph lines are amazing with so much wire.  These must have been the main source of communications and electrical power in the area.  I remember finding insulators in the jungles where the old towns and rail lines back in the bottle digging days.  There are sure lots of insulators on these poles.  There is some kind of bridge in the foreground that is identified as 54.  Another interesting photo.

More to come.