Gatún

In 1671, the British pirate Henry Morgan and his men bivouacked close to Gatún after sacking and burning down the old Panama City.

All over Panama, rates for meals and lodging shot up overnight, fueled by increased demand and gold fever.

Travelers going upriver on the Chagres stopped through Gatún, paying $2 a night for a hammock before proceeding on the often dangerous barge trip and overland mule ride to Panama City, from where they sailed on to San Francisco.

French warehouses, quarters and machine shops went up in Gatún and along the railroad line, and the town itself was rechristened "Cité de Lesseps."

French excavation works in the area between Limón Bay and Gatún advanced significantly, but by the late 1880s the effort floundered financially and at the cost of thousands of victims of yellow fever and other fatal diseases.

In 1904, when the US purchase the French Company’s rights and properties, American engineers and planners arrived at the former Cité de Lesseps to resume long abandoned excavation works.

However, Chief Engineer John F. Stevens advocated harnessing the Chagres and installing the Atlantic side locks at Gatún, and work began on both of these in 1906.

A few months later, Lt. Col. William L. Sibert established the headquarters of the Canal organization's Atlantic Division in Gatun and built his house to the east of the town.

Just a few years after Gatun’s refurbishment, on August 11, 1939, the U.S. Congress authorized the immediate construction of the long studied "Third Locks Project".

During the war, the Gatun Locks were surrounded by solid 26-foot corrugated metal steel fences and barrage balloons were anchored overhead.

By 1944, as the war receded to the Pacific and Gatun and the Canal Zone returned to its normal way of life, artillery positions were reused for various buildings and the bomb shelters were still in many backyards.

Today, most of Gatún is a virtual ghost town, administered and maintained by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP).

Many cruise passengers and tourists visit or pass by the Gatun Locks but do not venture into town to appreciate its remaining Canal Zone style architecture.

The former clinic, school, swimming pool and fire station are used by the ACP, but the old Sibert Lodge is no longer active.

Many of the most important ground breaking scientific and biological discoveries of the tropical animal and plant kingdom originated here.

Since 1958, the species of Peacock Bass have flourished to become the dominant angling game fish in Gatun Lake of the Panama Canal.