BASES -- Summary-Earlier Era                                                         [p9 of 14]  

FORMER MILITARY INSTALLATIONS  (First half of the 20^th Century) -- Continued

FORT DELESSEPS (1911-1955) (3.7 acres/Army/Atlantic side)

Fort DeLesseps, a small installation located adjacent to the Hotel Washington within the city of Colon, was named in honor of Count Ferdinand DeLesseps, builder of the Suez Canal who led the ill-fated French attempt to build a canal through Panama in the 1880s. (In 1911, when the original Panama Canal fortifications were being built, the Canal Zone included the western edge and northern tip of Colon city, known as Manzanilla Point.)

The property on which Fort DeLesseps was constructed was acquired by the U.S. Army from the Panama Railroad Company. Jurisdiction over the post, however, was never formally ceded to the United States.

The post housed Coast Artillery personnel who manned Battery Morgan, one of the original fortifications built to defend the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal and which consisted of two six-inch rifles with a range of 15,00 yards.  Construction of the battery was completed in 1916.  The guns there were regularly fired for practice in 1916, 1917, and 1918, but were then placed in caretaker status and not fired again until 1942.  Last fired in 1944 they were later dismounted and scrapped.

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Site developed, owned and maintained by  

William H. Ormsbee, Jr.  2005