Atlantic and Pacific linked by the Panama Railroad

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.3: Hispanic Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ben Bollig (University of Oxford), Ceire Broderick (University College Cork), Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork), Anna Forné (Gothenburg University), Cara Levey (University College Cork), Lori Oxford (Western Carolina University), Ailsa Peate (University of Westminster)

Domains

Railways

Dates

Date of occurrence 1855-01-28

Places

Panama (Location)
United States (Involved)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 attracted a multitude of “Forty-niners” who flocked to the isthmus of Panama and hiked the gruelling 50 miles through the swamps and jungles to the Pacific coast. The purchase of California by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (2 February 1848) also led to demands for reliable national communications by the United States Post Office. Congress therefore authorized contracts for two lines of mail steamships, one from New York and New Orleans to Panama City, and the other from Colon on the Pacific side of the isthmus to California and Oregon. Contracts were also issued for the construction of a transithmian railroad and the United States Topographical Corps were engaged to map and survey the route. On April 15, 1850 the Government of New…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

279 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Atlantic and Pacific linked by the Panama Railroad". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 May 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=4977, accessed 23 April 2024.]

Save this article