The opening of the Panama Canal to world commerce on August 15, 1914, represented the realization of a dream of over 400 years. Construction by the United States of the 50-mile waterway bisecting the Republic of Panama was among the hardest won by human ingenuity and toil.

It was completed almost 11 years after Panama had gained her independence from Colombia, with assistance of the United States and shortly thereafter signed the Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the United States which granted the United States the right to build, operate, and defend a canal through Panama.

The United States had been seriously interested in an isthmian canal for half a century before that time, starting with the Clayton-Bulwar treaty with Great Britain in 1850. Interest in constructing a canal in Panama actually dated back to 1524 when Charles V of Spain ordered the first survey of a proposed canal route through the isthmus of Panama. That early, people already realized the advantages and commercial value of a route that would avoid sailing the 10,000-mile journey around Cape Horn at the tip of South America. But more than three centuries passed before the first construction effort was attempted. During the intervening years numerous boards, commissions, and private interest groups urged canal construction at various locations in Central America. The most notable was the effort of a private French Company (La Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique) to construct a canal at the isthmus of Panama beginning in 1880.