Photo of the Week

Moving up the road to Gatun this week to follow the creation to the end of the Gatun Swimming Pool. I jumped for joy when I came across the photo above. The construction of the Gatun Pool in March, 1944. The bachelor quarters and Masonic building are already in place. A small portion of the gym's roof is seen on the left of the photo. I looked for some info about the construction, but 1944 was in the middle of the end of Canal Record publication (1941) and the beginning of the Panama Canal Review which began publication in 1950. This is a GRAND old photo.

Below is a 1945 photo taken by a Cole Brown's father back in the '40s while living in Gatun. Cole sent me his father's photos collection a while ago and have his photos posting in other sections of this website. This 1945 photo is of the brand new pool.

The next photo down in color was taken by Bill Fall while visiting Panama in 2014 and in his email, he said, "the Gatun Pool has a new crack in it and that it will be permanently closed". The construction of the new locks was just too much for the structure and gave way. What a shame. I wonder how many Zonian kids learned to swim in that pool. I know I taught quite a few when I worked there in the early '70s. The housing that was across the street is all gone now.

The next to the very buttom photo I captured from Google Earth and shows all that is left of the grand old pool. Just a shell remains. How sad can it get? The lights are out forever.

On the bright side here is a photo of some of my students clowning around in the pool. I don't remember all their names, but Careys - three of them, Bowerman and? Sweet kids!

Long live the memories of our Canal Zone home.