In the middle of the 19th century, the California gold rush brought thousands of settlers to America's west coast.
But finding gold may have been easier than transporting it back east.
The only hope for avoiding a grueling six-month wagon journey was to travel the narrowest portion of the continent — the 48-kilometer Isthmus of Panama.
By 1855, a railroad spanning the region significantly shortened to the trip, but unloading and reloading ships at each port cost time and money.
To truly connect these two bodies of water shipping interests needed a canal — a continuous maritime passage through the isthmus.
The first attempt at this colossal construction project was taken up in 1881 by French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps.
De Lesseps had supervised construction of Egypt's Suez Canal, but his success made him overconfident.
He insisted on digging the canal at sea level, even though it required boring directly through the Continental Divide mountain range.
Futile excavation efforts were buried under constant landslides.
And since the diplomat had only visited the site briefly during Panama's dry season, his workers were unprepared for torrential storms, venomous jungle fauna, and tropical diseases.
