Photo of the Week
March 5, 2023

This week we have an outstanding and rare photo taken by the Central Press Association in 1927 with the caption:

"The Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal returns after 20 years.   Balboa, C.Z. -- John F. Stevens, who laid the foundations for the construction of the Panama Canal twenty years ago, in a dredge in the Gaillard Cut with Governor Walker, of the Canal Zone, on his first visit to the Canal Zone since he retired."

Stevens is in the colored suit and Walker is in the white suit.  The dredge is unknown.

My brother came across this wonderful and historic photo.  Thank you for sharing bro.

Read the article : The engineering genius history forgot: John F. Stevens

https://www.publicworks.com/doc/the-engineering-genius-history-forgot-john-f-0001 

John F. Stevens' primary achievement in Panama was to build the infrastructure needed for the completion of the canal. "The digging," he said, "is the least thing of all." He proceeded immediately to build warehouses, machine shops, and piers. Communities for the personnel were planned and built to include housing, schools, hospitals, churches, and hotels. He authorized extensive sanitation and mosquito-control programs that eliminated yellow fever and other diseases from the Isthmus. Reflecting his background, he saw the early stage of the canal project itself as primarily a problem in railroad engineering, which included rebuilding the Panama Railway and devising a rail-based system for disposing of the soil from the excavations. Stevens argued the case against a sea level canal like the French had tried to build. He successfully convinced Theodore Roosevelt of the necessity of a high-level canal built with dams and locks.  From Wikipedia notes.

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Walker, Meriwether L(ewis) (b. Sept. 30, 1869, Lynchburg, Va. - d. July 29, 1947, Vineyard Haven, Mass.), governor of the Panama Canal Zone (1924-28). He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1893 and from the U.S. Engineering School in 1896. He was director of the Army Field Engineering School in 1912-14 and professor of practical military engineering at West Point in 1914-16. He was chief engineer of punitive expeditions into Mexico in 1916-17, went to France as chief engineer of American Expeditionary Forces from in 1918-19, and then continued as instructor of the Army War College in 1919-20. He was promoted to colonel on July 1, 1920. He was chief Panama Canal maintenance engineer from 1921 to 1924, before his appointment as governor of the Panama Canal Zone. Of all governors of the canal, he was probably the most aloof. He was "all business," his men declared. Like George Washington Goethals, he was a man of prodigious memory, his mind retaining the small details that ordinarily might be forgotten. Canal traffic was growing in volume during his tenure, and he foresaw the need of future expansion. His was the foresight to see the need of an additional water reservoir somewhere in the hills of the upper Chagres. In fact, in 1925 he took Illinois congressman Martin B. Madden into the jungles of Alhajuela and pointed out possible sites for the dam. When the dam was built, it was named in honour of Madden for his support to the project. Walker meanwhile worked for the deepening of the Pacific sea-lane and Balboa harbour. Initial steps were taken to control flooding of the Chagres River and an auxiliary power plant was constructed at Miraflores. A general clean-up dredging program in Gaillard Cut also provided for handling of increasing traffic.\