The Panama Canal and the Cape Cod Canal both opened the
same year – 1914. The Cape Cod Canal, 7
miles long, opened to some traffic on July 29 just one day after the start of
World War One (or the Great War) on July 28.
The Panama Canal, 48 miles long, opened two weeks later on August 15.
These amazing feats of engineering may have started years before by
entrepreneurial investors, but both were completed as American ventures.
The centennial of these two principal waterways
were celebrated this summer.
The Panama Canal has, of course, world significance as it provides a water route between the two oceans, or more accurately from the Caribbean Sea through the Isthmus of Panama to the Gulf of Panama at the Atlantic Ocean. Noted author David McCullough wrote “The Path Between the Seas” (2001), the story of the 400 years of blood, sweat and tears and the eventual successful building of the Panama Canal. The canal’s rich history includes its ownership by several countries and partnerships, its triumphant completion by the United States government, and its final control by the Panamanian government in 1999.
The Panama Canal has, of course, world significance as it provides a water route between the two oceans, or more accurately from the Caribbean Sea through the Isthmus of Panama to the Gulf of Panama at the Atlantic Ocean. Noted author David McCullough wrote “The Path Between the Seas” (2001), the story of the 400 years of blood, sweat and tears and the eventual successful building of the Panama Canal. The canal’s rich history includes its ownership by several countries and partnerships, its triumphant completion by the United States government, and its final control by the Panamanian government in 1999.
Obviously, some New Englanders have seen the Panama Canal while
on cruises or while traveling in Central America. In contrast, there are probably few New
Englanders who have not travelled over the Cape Cod Canal, sometimes nicknamed
the Big Ditch.
Dreams of creating a waterway that crossed over Cape Cod from
Sandwich to Buzzard’s Bay began soon after people arrived in Massachusetts in
the 17th century. Ships travelling north or south along Massachusetts’
coastlines were met with shifting currents and underwater boulders and reefs
around the arm of the Cape. Two rivers, the Manomet and the Scusset, penetrated
the land from the western and eastern sides – but they did not meet.
At least a mile of land prohibited water traffic from crossing the
isthmus. Surveys of a possible project
were conducted over the course of two centuries until work seriously began in
1909 by the Boston, Cape Cod and New York Canal Company, a private venture.
Although the completed canal was a first a difficult and treacherous journey,
successful completion essentially cut travel around the outermost and southern
Cape from 62 to 7 miles.
While one might technically call Cape Cod an island (cut off
from the rest of the state), three bridges were constructed in the early part
of the 20th century: The Buzzards Bay Railroad Bridge in 1910, the Bourne
Bridge in 1911 and the Sagamore in 1913. The original depth of the canal was
only 15 feet due to many glacial boulders deposited in the Ice Age that lay in
the path of men and machinery attempting to cut through.
Soon after the United States became involved in World War
I, German U-Boats were patrolling waters off of Cape Cod. The
subsequent shelling attack on the Perth Amboy tug and her
barges moved President Woodrow Wilson to proclaim that the
Cape Cod Canal would now be under United States government control (or more
accurately the Federal Railroad Administration, a subordinate agency to the
Department of War.) In 1927, the canal was sold to the United States
government.
Work directed and
performed by the Army Corps of Engineers during the next few decades
increased the depth and width of the channel and redesigned and rebuilt the
bridges spanning the waterway. The projects were funded by
the Federal government through the Public Works Administration and the
National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. The new railroad bridge, with its
544-foot horizontal length, was at one time the longest in the world. The
highway bridges rise 135 feet above high water.
Today, the Cape Cod
Canal Bikeway runs along the southern side for 8 miles between the Bourne and
Sagamore Bridges. Each year, bikers ride in the Pan-Mass Challenge (and fundraiser)
and travel the 111 miles from Sturbridge to Provincetown over the
Bourne Bridge and along the bikeway. It continues through Sandwich and
beyond and is held the first weekend in August.
It was between these bridges on July 29, 2014 that fireworks (said
to rival those off the Boston Esplanade on the 4th of July) were set
off to celebrate the 100-year history of the original canal. For a week, events and festivities led up to
the centennial celebration. A website devoted entirely to the Cape Cod Canal
Centennial (dot com) also celebrated the 375th anniversary of the towns of
Sandwich, Barnstable and Yarmouth.
You can read more about the building of the Cape Cod Canal on
official sites of the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Cape Cod Canal Chamber
of Commerce. Minuteman libraries have a some of the original engineering
documents and books of interest. These include “The Cape Cod
Canal: Breaking Through the Bared and Bended Arm” by J. North Conway (History
Press, 2008.) The book is in its fifth printing which is evidence in
the interest in the Cape Cod Canal.
Conway explores the entire history of the need for the canal and the
fits and starts of the project through the 1914 opening, including the story of
August Belmont, Jr., financier of the project.
Historic New England’s Images of America series includes two. One, written by Timothy T. Orwig, “The Cape
Cod Canal” and the other, “The Military History of the Cape Cod Canal” by
Gerard Butler. Both include hundreds of
original photographs with plenty of description.
Another pictorial history in full color, “Cape Cod Nights: A
Photographic Exploration of Cape Cod and the Islands After Dark” (2013) by
Timothy Little includes beautiful photographs of the canal and its bridges. A
Cape Cod Historical publication includes a 1989 book about the canal by Robert
Farson. The SAILS and CLAMS library networks (which include Massachusetts
libraries on the south coast and the Cape) have many other resources, includes
DVDs and many historical documents. Residents of Massachusetts can, of course,
request any of those materials through any library’s reference librarians.
