Cristóbal, Colón - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Cristóbal is a port in the Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

side of the Panama Canal

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...

. It is located on the western edge of Manzanillo Island and is part of the Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

nian city and province of Colón

Colón Province

Colón is a province of Panama. The capital is the city of Colón.This province has traditionally been focused in commerce , but also has natural resources that are being developed as tourist attraction, such as coral reefs and rainforests...

. Cristóbal Colón is the Spanish translation for Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

, an explorer from Italy for whom these places were named.

Early history

What came to be known as "Old Cristóbal," and today consists of the port of Cristóbal, was first built by the Panama Railroad Company in the 1850s at the time they dredged part of the 650 acres (2.6 km²) of virgin swamp on Manzanillo Island to build their headquarters and port of arrival for railway travelers. In the 1880s, the French Inter-Oceanic Canal Company arrived to find the port of Colón

Colón, Panama

Colón is a sea port on the Caribbean Sea coast of Panama. The city lies near the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. It is capital of Panama's Colón Province and has traditionally been known as Panama's second city....

(then Aspinwall) just a few streets wide and long while the rest of Manzanillo Island was still a swamp. They used soil from their canal excavation works to create a landfill on a coral reef adjacent to the Panama Railroad's area of Colon. This new landfill area, upon which the French built their facilities, was called Christophe Colombe, a name which was translated in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón.

In 1904, after Panama's US-backed declaration of independence from Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, the Canal Commission set up its provisional headquarters in Cristóbal. By then, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

had purchased the French Canal enterprise's assets in Panama and had secured use and control of the Canal Zone "in perpetuity." The Panama Railroad's assets also came under Canal Zone control, and its facilities became part of the Canal Zone town of Cristóbal.

Cristóbal, CZ

Cristóbal was of vital importance to the American plan to build the Panama Canal. Much like the city of Colón

Colón, Panama

(formerly Aspinwall) had been during the American construction of the Panama Railroad, Cristobal was the port of entry for construction equipment and materials, most canal workers, and supplies and provisions for them and their dependents. High priority was given to building up the town beyond the existing French and Panama Railroad facilities.

By April 1906 Cristóbal had a population of 2,101, and 489 of these were American. Just a year later the population had topped 4,000, a quarter of which were American. Construction of facilities for gold roll

Gold roll

The gold roll and the silver roll were racially-coded payroll categories of workers employed by the U.S. builders of the Panama Canal.After the U.S. revival in 1904 of the abandoned French-led Canal construction project, skilled workers and management staff were recruited almost exclusively from...

and silver roll employees (terms that respectively designated mostly white Americans and mostly West Indian laborers working on the construction of the Canal) was underway and housing was expanded, though many bachelors and silver roll employees were housed in box cars given the lack of sufficient housing throughout the Canal Zone. Also that year, the former French and Panama Railroad hospitals were consolidated and refurbished.

In 1907 the Cristóbal Women's Club was founded and fraternal orders for men, including Masonic

Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

and Elks

Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is an American fraternal order and social club founded in 1868...

lodges were active. Commissaries and clubhouses were built and very active. Construction of housing and facilities expanded northward. In 1913 the present-day Hotel Washington was built on the site of a former Panama Railroad building known as the Washington House. Cristobalites eventually had their own commissary, post office, police, fire and railroad stations, churches, yacht club

Yacht club

A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to sailing and yachting.-Description:Yacht Clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there are some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations...

, YMCA

YMCA

The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...

, VFW

Veterans of Foreign Wars

The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is a congressionally chartered war veterans organization in the United States. Headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, VFW currently has 1.5 million members belonging to 7,644 posts, and is the largest American organization of combat...

, American Legion

American Legion

The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...

, several fraternal lodges and a masonic temple.

After the Panama Canal's inauguration the port of Cristóbal's great piers were built and, shortly after, shipping companies moved into the area which came to be known as Steamship Row. At around the same time the northwestern tip of Manzanillo Island was converted into an artillery post named Fort De Lesseps, so new residential housing areas for US employees were needed. This required new planning for Cristóbal which was designed primarily for port activity, as headquarters for shipping agencies, freight handlers, banks, and the Canal Zone's Atlantic side civil administration center. A new residential section was built by expanding Cristobal along Colon Beach, through another massive landfill of northern Manzanillo Island's swamps. This new area came to be known as New Cristóbal.

New Cristóbal's construction progressed from 1917 to 1938, and involved filling in swamp areas beyond Cristóbal which allowed the city of Colón to expand too. As part of this expansion, a new Cristóbal elementary school was built in 1918 and Cristobal High School in 1933. This period coincided with the period of Colón

Colón, Panama

's greatest economic prosperity. During these years the port of Cristóbal employed almost 2,000 employees .

The mid-1950s saw the greatest transformation of Cristobal. This change saw a drastic population shift of Cristobalites to new areas in Margarita and Coco Solo, and the redefinition of territorial boundaries which reduced the extension of the Canal Zone on Manzanillo Island. These changes came about as a result of the construction of the town of Margarita, the 1955 bilateral treaty, and the US Navy's transfer of its Coco Solo Station to the Canal Zone government. Cristóbal's population in 1955 dropped to 562, and New Cristóbal's to 1,130.

Starting in late 1957, in compliance with the 1955 Treaty, five tracts of land totaling 48.5 acres (196,272.7 m²) in Cristóbal and all of New Cristóbal were transferred to the Republic of Panama. Cristóbal High School was moved from New Cristobal to Coco Solo, the Colon Hospital was moved from Colon Beach to an area south of Coco Solo and France Field, the Hotel Washington came under Panamanian jurisdiction, and the Panama Railroad stations in Cristóbal and Panama City were relocated. Many of the properties transferred as a result of the 1955 Treaty had been owned by the Panama Railroad for over 100 years.

By the early 1960s, Cristóbal was almost exclusively a commercial and social area with few residents. Cristóbal was the target of anti-American protests throughout the early 1960s, and particularly after the Balboa "Flag Incident" in January 1964. New Cristóbal and Fort DeLesseps

Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps, GCSI was the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869, and substantially reduced sailing distances and times between the West and the East.He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a sea-level...

, now part of the Republic of Panama, became the most prestigious areas for Colón

Colón, Panama

's citizens and for executives of the Bahía Las Minas Refinery. Other former Panama Railroad areas eventually fell into decline in the 1970s and 1980s, along with most of the rest of the city of Colón.

Starting in 1979, in compliance with the Torrijos-Carter Panama Canal Treaties of 1977, the Canal Zone was abolished and US control over the Panama Canal and the former Canal Zone began to be transferred to the Republic of Panama. Many areas in Cristóbal were among the first to be transferred, as was the Panama Railroad which ceased to operate in the mid-1980s due to lack of maintenance.

Present-day Cristóbal

Cristóbal is now part of the city of Colón, though it is also the name of the district which encompasses the Atlantic Side portions of the former Panama Canal Zone

Panama Canal Zone

The Panama Canal Zone was a unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of...

. Today Cristóbal, like much of the city of Colón

Colón, Panama

, is in poor condition with crime problems and needed maintenance. The architecture of much of what was once known as Steamship Row (the areas around Roosevelt Avenue, Terminal Street and Columbus Avenue) yet can still be appreciated. Other Cristobal area landmarks like the Hotel Washington, Christ Church by the Sea, and the St. Mary's Academy's Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal are very well preserved and worth visiting.

Despite Colón's poor condition, Cristóbal's port is thriving once again under private management while facing competition from other container ports built around Coco Solo.

Early history

Cristóbal, CZ

Present-day Cristóbal

See also