PHOTO ESSAY: Tracing pre-canal Panama's forgotten crossings and colonial routes
Ruins of the old bell tower in "Panama Viejo," or Old Panama, the first permanent Spanish settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas, is backdropped by the modern skyline of Panama City, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. Credit: AP/Matias Delacroix
PANAMA CITY — For centuries, Panama served as a natural bridge for global trade. Mule trains hauled treasure over stone-paved trails, riverboats floated gold and silver down the Chagres River to Caribbean ports like Portobelo, guarded by the cannons of Fort San Lorenzo, and later, the world’s first transcontinental railroad ferried passengers and cargo from ocean to ocean.
This photo journey looks back at the routes that carried the world across Panama’s isthmus long before the first lock opened in the Panama Canal.
These crossings made Panama one of the world’s most strategic corridors long before engineers carved the canal. Today, traces of those forgotten routes remain: moss-covered cobblestones hidden in the jungle, the colonial ruins of Panama Viejo, sacked by pirate Henry Morgan and later re-founded, fort walls crumbling above the sea, and the Chagres still winding on as a silent witness to centuries of passage.
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