History

2024

August 2024

U.S. Census Bureau History: The Panama Canal and Island Areas

After a decade of backbreaking labor, the United States officially opened the Panama Canal to shipping
traffic on August 15, 1914.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

After more than a decade of construction, the United States officially opened the Panama Canal to shipping traffic on August 15, 1914. Construction workers cut and blasted their way through a narrow band of land known as the Isthmus of Panama. When opened, the 51-mile waterway connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and allowed ships to bypass the treacherous passage around South America's Cape Horn and slashed approximately 8,000 miles from the voyage between the East and West coasts of the United States.

Following the discovery of gold in California in 1848, transport companies began to seriously investigate routes across the narrow Isthmus of Panama to avoid the lengthy and dangerous route around South America's Cape Horn. In the late 1840s, steamships carried cargo between ports on the East Coast of the United States and Panama. Wagons, pack animals, and manpower carried the cargo over a land route to the Isthmus' west coast ports where it was loaded on ships bound for California. In 1855, the Panama Railroad opened between the east and west coasts of the Isthmus. The railway greatly reduced the time and need for manpower to haul cargo over land, but engineers were already eyeing the possibility of constructing a water route that would allow ships to pass directly across the Isthmus without loading and unloading its cargo.

After successfully opening the Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas in 1869, French surveyors and engineers began exploring canal routes across the Isthmus of Panama. In 1878, French naval officer Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse signed a treaty with Columbia—which owned the Panamanian isthmus—to construct a canal along the present-day canal route stretching from Limon Bay on the Caribbean Sea to Panama City on the Pacific Ocean. After 18 years and the loss of more than 20,000 laborers to accidents and disease, the French effort to blast a canal through the isthmus went bankrupt.

The United States was keenly interested in the French effort to construct a canal through the isthmus and their studies other routes, including one spanning the width of Nicaragua. Following the French bankruptcy and a second foundering effort to continue the project, President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of State John M. Hay began negotiations to purchase the canal tract across the isthmus from Columbia. Althouh the United States signed a purchase treaty, the Columbian Senate rejected the agreement in March 1903. In response, the Roosevelt administration supported the Panamanian rebellion that declared independence from Columbia on November 3, 1903, sent the U.S. Navy to block Columbian intervention, and formally recognized the new nation of Panama on November 6, 1903. That same day, Panama's ambassador to the United States Philippe Bunau-Varilla signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty granting the United States the right to indefinite access and defense of the Panama Canal Zone—an area extending 5 miles on each side of the canal, but excluding the cities of Colon and Panama City..

Within months of Panama's independence, the United States agreed to purchase the French canal equipment and take over the canal workforce and existing excavations. It established the Isthmian Canal Commission on February 26. 1904, to oversee the American claim to Panama Canal Zone and conducted the first census of the new territory. In 1904, the population of the Panama Canal Zone was reported to be 9,742. Additional censuses were conducted in 1906 by the U.S. Sanitary Department of Panama and in 1908 by the Canal Commission. These showed that as the American effort to construct the canal got underway, the population of the Canal Zone grew from 22,137 to 50,008. In 1912, a complete enumeration of the Canal Zone, including Isthmian Canal Commission employees and laborers, Panama Railroad employees, and U.S. military personnel living in Panama (both inside and outside the American-controlled Canal Zone) was conducted on February 1, 1912. That census counted a population of 62,810.

Under the direction of chief engineers John Frank Stevens (1905–1907) and George Washington Goethals (1907–1914), the monumental task of excavating approximately 240 million cubic yards of soil to construct the 51-mile canal across the Isthmus of Panama was completed 2 years ahead of schedule. Construction of the canal cost the United States about $500 million ($15.2 billion today). Whereas the 18-year French effort to build the Panama Canal saw more than 22,000 laborers die from construction injuries and disease, U.S. Army Chief Sanitary Officer William C. Gorgas reduced the official death toll from construction injuries and diseases like yellow fever and malaria to approximately 5,600 during the 10-year American construction effort.

A grand opening ceremony for the Panama Canal was planned for August 15, 1914, but the start of World War I forced a more muted celebration. Few dignitaries attended the opening as Chief Enginneer Goethals haled the cement-carrying cargo ship S.S. Ancon as the first vessel to officially transit the canal. Upon its completion, the Panama Canal cut up to 5 months of travel time and 8,000 nautical miles off the journey between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In its first year of operation, approximately 1,000 ships transited the canal.

Beginning in 1920, the U.S. Census Bureau enumerated residents of the Panama Canal Zone at the same time as the stateside decennial census. Under the supervision of the territory's U.S. governor, census takers counted 22,858 people in the Panama Canal Zone in 1920. The Census Bureau continued to enumerate the canal zone's population through the 1970 Census, when it counted 44,198 military and civilian inhabitants. In accordance with the terms of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, the Panama Canal Zone no longer existed as an entity under American control and the Census Bureau ended operations there on October 1, 1979. The United States retained the right to defend the canal from any threat that could interfere with the ability of ships from all nations to use the waterway. On December 31, 1999, Panama assumed complete control of the canal's operation. Today, approximately 13,000 to 14,000 ships carrying 500 million tons of cargo transit the canal every year.

You can learn more about the history of the Panama Canal and the Census Bureau's operations in the canal zone, U.S. territories, and Island Areas using census data and records. For example:

• Under the direction of the U.S. Isthmian Canal Commission, the United States conducted its first census of the Canal Zone in 1904. The 1904 Census counted 9,742 people in the region. The Department of Civil Administration of the Isthmian Canal Commission conducted a census of the Panama Canal Zone in 1912. Data were published as part of the Census Bureau's 1910 Census publication program for the United State's outlying possessions including Alaska, Hawaii, "Porto Rico," military and naval service abroad, the Philippine Islands, Panama Canal Zone, Guam, and Samoa. The population of the United States in 1910, including its outlying possessions, was 101,115,487. The population of the Panama Canal Zone in 1912 was 62,810.
• In the years prior to the first U.S. decennial census in the Panama Canal Zone in 1920, the Canal Zone's police departments conducted annual "police censuses" in the American territory. In 1914, the census reported a population of 45,296 and 31,048 in 1916. Data for censuses conducted from 1917 through 1919 were not published.
• Thanks to President Theodore Roosevelt's support of a 1903 Panamanian rebellion against Columbia, the Panama Canal Zone came under U.S. jurisdiction on November 18, 1903. Three years later, Roosevelt became the first sitting President of the United States to visit a foreign country when he made an inspection tour of the Panama Canal in November 1906.
• With canal construction completed on August 15, 1914, thousands of workers left Panama for other opportunities. Between 1912 and 1920, the population of the Panama Canal Zone fell more than 63 percent from 62,810 to 22,858. An influx of military personnel and their families helped the population rise nearly 73 percent to 39,467 in 1930, and more than 31 percent to 51,827 in 1940.
• The United States established a number of military installations in the Panama Canal Zone. By 1940, nearly 46 percent of the Panama Canal Zone's 51,827 inhabitants lived on a military base. With a population of 3,902 in 1940, Fort Davis Military Reservation and Camp at Gatun was the largest American military base in the Panama Canal Zone, followed by the Fort Clayton (3,898) and Fort Amador Military reservations (2,655). Some of the canal zone's smallest military installations included Guarapo Islands Naval Reservation with 6 inhabitants and Toro Point Naval Radio Direction Finder Station with 11 inhabitants.
• The Census Bureau conducted a decennial census of the Panama Canal Zone at the same time as it conducted the stateside censuses from 1920 to 1970. Between 1920 and 1970, the population of the Panama Canal Zone grew from 22,858 to 44,198. The 1970 Census was the last American census conducted in the Panama Canal Zone because the United States transferred sovereignty over the Canal Zone to Panama October 1, 1979, in accordance with the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
• On April 1, 2022, the National Archives released the 1950 Census records to the public 72 years after it was taken. Included among these records were the special questionnaires used for inhabitants of the Panama Canal Zone. Census takers used form P91, 1950 Census of Population—Panama Canal Zone to enumerate households. Changes to the form's heading accounted for differences in the Panama Canal Zone's political subdivisions, adding a "Court District" entry. The form's basic population and demographic questions were similar to those in the stateside census, but fewer questions were asked. While the "race question" on the stateside questionnaire included White, Black, American Indian, Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino response options, the Panama Canal Zone was limited to White, Black, and Other (requiring a written identification of the other race). There were no sample questions and few questions concerning the characteristics of the inhabitants' housing. The Panama Canal Zone's questionnaire included a question about educational attainment for all people, whereas it was only a sample question on the stateside forms. For the birthplace question, enumerators entered "CZ" for people reporting their birth in the Panama Canal Zone. The 1950 Census recorded the Panama Canal Zone's population to be 52,300. The largest cities included Silver City with a population of 5,729; La Boca with 4,246; and Balboa with 4,117 inhabitants.
• The Census Bureau conducted its last decennial census in the Panama Canal Zone in 1970, but continues to conduct decennial and economic censuses in other Island Areas, territories, and U.S. Minor Outlying Islands. For example:
  • The Census Bureau first conducted a census in Puerto Rico for the U.S. War Department in 1899 following the Spanish-American War. Results were published in the Report on the Census of Porto Rico, 1899. Decennial censuses in conjunction with the stateside population census have been conducted on the island since 1910. Economic censuses began in Puerto Rico in 1909 and have been part of the stateside economic census program since 1963.
  • The Census Bureau conducted its first population census in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1917. Results were published in Census of the Virgin Islands of the United States, November 1, 1917. The islands' government conducted a census in 1930, and the Census Bureau conducted the 1940 and subsequent population censuses. Retail trade data were first collected from establishments in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1958. Today, all sectors of the islands' economy participate in the economic census.
  • The population of the island of Guam has been counted in each decennial census since 1920. The Census Bureau began collecting retail trade data in Guam in 1958 and expanded the scope of the economic census there during subsequent censuses. Today, the economic census collects data from establishments in all sectors of the economy.
  • The Census Bureau first collected and published population data for American Samoa in 1920. An economic census has been conducted there every 5 years since 2002.
  • The Census Bureau conducted the first decennial and agriculture censuses in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in 1970. The islands have been part of the economic census since 1982.
  • Johnston Atoll is comprised of four islands southwest of Hawaii and claimed by the United States following passage of the Guano Islands Act of 1856. The U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency has overseen administration of and access to Johnston Atoll since 1973 per an agreement between the agency and the U.S. Air Force. The 1940 Census reported Johnston Atoll (Johnston Island only) with Hawaii. Since 1950, Johnston Island has been reported separately. In 2020, the world's largest colony of red-tailed tropicbirds far outnumbered the 10 scientist reported on the island in 2020.
  • Located west of the Hawaiian Islands, the Midway Islands (Eastern and Sand islands) became a U.S. possession in 1867 and have been administered by the U.S. Navy since 1903. Their population was reported with Hawaii from 1910 through 1940, and separately beginning in 1950. Population data were last reported in 2010 when 40 people lived on the Midway Islands.
  • Palmyra Atoll consists of dozens of small islets that became a possession of the U.S. at the same time as Hawaii in 1898. The atoll was enumerated as part of Hawaii in 1940 and mentioned, but not enumerated in 1950 and 1960. Administered as a nature preserve by the U.S. government and the Nature Conservancy, the atoll has been reported separately as an unpopulated area since 1970.
  • Located approximately 600 miles southeast of the Marshall Islands, Wake Island became a United States possession in 1898. It served as a layover for Pan American Airways flights prior to World War II. On December 8, 1941, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. Despite a valiant defense by the U.S. Marines, contractors, and Pan American Airways employees, Japan eventually captured the island and held it until September 1945. The Census Bureau first conducted a census of Wake Island's population in 1950 when it counted 349 inhabitants. Administered by the U.S. Air Force as a refueling and emergency landing facility, Wake Island has no permanent residents, but approximately 100 military personnel and civilian researchers are estimated to be on the island at any given time.
  • For more information about the Census Bureau's enumeration of the Island Areas during the 2020 Census, see 2020 Island Areas Censuses (IAC) Demographic Profile Summary File, SFIAC/20-03, October 2022.
• Like the Panama Canal Zone, which was last enumerated by the United States in 1970, there and many territories, islands, and special enumeration areas that were once included in but have since been excluded from censuses. For example:
  • The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) was administered by the United States as a United Nations trusteeship beginning on July 18, 1947. The TTPI included the Marshall, Caroline, Palau, and Northern Mariana Islands. The U.S. Navy conducted a census of the TTPI in 1950; the Office of the High Commissioner of the TTPI conducted censuses in 1958 and 1973; and the Census Bureau conducted the censuses there in 1970 and 1980. In 1980, the Census Bureau reported the Northern Mariana Islands as a separate entity rather than with the other TTPI entities. In 1986 the Northern Mariana Islands became a commonwealth of the United States. As a result, the other TTPI entities known as the Federated States of Micronesia (comprising the TTPI administrative districts of Kosrae, Ponape [now Pohnpei], Truk [now Chuuk], and Yap) and, retroactive to October 21, 1986, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, became freely associated states, independent of the United States except for U.S. responsibility for their security and defense. On December 22, 1990, the United Nations Security Council officially terminated TTPI jurisdiction over all areas except Palau. Palau became a "freely associated state" on October 1, 1994, ending TTPI jurisdiction. Palau was included in the decennial census from 1970, 1980, and 1990.
  • The Corn Islands (43 miles east of Nicaragua) were a territory of the United States from 1914 until 1971. In cooperation with the U.S. State Department, the Census Bureau provided population counts of the islands in reports for the 1950 Census (covering both 1940 and 1950) and 1960. Data were not reported in 1970 and control of the islands reverted to Nicaragua on April 15, 1971.
  • The Swan Islands consists of three small Caribbean islands northeast of Honduras. The Swan Islands were home to small U.S. Navy, weather monitoring, and agriculture quarantine installations. The 1950, 1960, and 1970 Censuses reported population counts for the islands before ownership was passed to Honduras in 1972.
  • The United States claimed ownership of Navassa Island in 1857. Although mentioned in the 1950 and 1960 Census reports, there were no population counts published. The 2.1 square mile island between Jamaica and Haiti is the site of a lighthouse and has been reported as uninhabited since the 1970 Census.
  • Quita Sueno Bank, Roncador Cay, and Serrana Bank are small reef islands claimed by the United States for their access to western Caribbean fishing grounds, deposits of bird guano used as fertilizer, and small military outposts. Quita Sueno Bank had an American-operated lighthouse beginning in 1919. Although the islands were not enumerated, they are noted in the 1950 and 1960 Census reports. The islands were turned over to Columbia in 1973.
  • The United States claimed Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands to mine bird guano for fertilizer in 1856 and 1857. Administered by the Department of the Interior since 1936, the tiny populations on the islands in 1940 (three on Jarvis and Baker, and four on Howland) were part the U.S. Department of Commerce American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project established to protect American claims to Baker, Howland, Jarvis, Canton and Enderbury Islands; establish airstrips; and provide weather monitoring reports. The Census Bureau reported the islands' data as part of the Hawaii 1940 Census report. The islands have been uninhabited since 1950 and have served as a wildlife refuge overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 1974.
  • President Franklin D. Roosevelt formally placed the South Pacific Canton Island under the control of the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1939. Located between Hawaii and Fiji, the island was an important refueling site for trans-Pacific passenger and cargo aircraft beginning in 1939. It later became an important South Pacific tracking site for the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (1960-1965) and the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space and Missile System Organization until 1976. The 1940 Census reported Canton Island's population as part of Hawaii, and separately when it was an important air route layover at the time of the 1950 and 1960 Censuses. No population data were reported in 1970 and 1980. A 1979 treaty turned the island over to the Republic of Kiribati which took possession in 1983.
  • The Guano Islands Act of 1856 allowed American companies to claim Enderbury Island in 1860. Formally claimed by President Franklin Roosevelt (along with Canton Island) in 1938 to counter British claims to the island, the U.S. Department of Commerce sponsored a small population on the island to establish an airstrip and weather monitoring station before being evacuated during World War II. Like nearby Canton Island (above), Enderbury Island's population was included alongside data for Hawaii in 1940, and separately in 1950 and 1960. Population data were not reported in 1970 or 1980. The island was turned over to the Republic of Kiribati in 1983.
  • Kingman Reef is a nearly submerged atoll midway between Hawaii and American Samoa annexed by the United States in 1922 and placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Navy in 1934. Pan American Airways briefly used the atoll's lagoon as a layover for flights between Hawaii and New Zealand. It was mentioned but not enumerated in 1950 and 1960, and reported as unpopulated in the 1980 and 1990 Censuses.
• Did you know the Census Bureau's American Community Survey collects ancestry data including the number of people who identify themselves as Panamanian? In 2011, an estimated 180,462 people in the United States identified themselves as Panamanian. In 2021, an estimated 219,966 people identified themselves as Panamanian. Of this number, 118,301 reported they were born in the United States (including the Panama Canal Zone prior to 1979); 61,824 were U.S. citizens by naturalization; and 21,827 were not U.S. citizens.
• In 2022, an estimated 242,035 Americans identified themselves as Panamanian. More than 50 percent of the nation's Panamanians reported one race in 2022, while 42.7 percent reported two or more races. Of the 155,701 Panamanians aged 25 years and over, 93 percent were high school graduates and 41.2 percent held a bachelors degree or higher. Median household income for the 88,670 Panamanian-American households that responded was $69,864; 52.6 percent owned the home they lived in; 82.7 percent had 1 or more vehicles available; 97.4 percent had a computer; and 94 percent had broadband Internet.
• Learn more about many Census Bureau employees who helped conduct censuses in the United States' territories, and Island Areas at our Notable Alumni webpage. Among the employees included are Philippines census taker Lyman Walter Vere Kennon and Martin Teofilo Delgado; U.S. Virgin Islands enumerators Wilfred Ethelbert Messer and Ivanna Eudora Kean; Puerto Rico census taker Luis Munoz Morales; Guam's Agueda Iglesias Johnston; Alaska Territory enumerator Kathryn Dyakanoff Seller, and many others.

This Month in Census History

The United States conducted censuses as of the first Monday of August from 1790 through 1820.

In the decades that followed, "Census Day" was in June, January, and April. Most recently, the population of the United States was 331,449,281 as of April 1, 2020.

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The United States began collecting foreign trade data in 1790 when American customs officials inspected shipments and accessed duties on the goods transiting the nation's ports. Customs duties were the nation's primary source of income and the secretary of the Treasury published these data in The American State Papers.

Beginning in 1821, the Treasury Department published annual data in Commerce and Navigation of the United States. In 1866, Congress created the Bureau of Statistics to compile and publish these data.

In 1903, the Bureau of Statistics moved to the Department of Commerce. Twenty years later, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover consolidated all foreign trade data reporting into the Division of Foreign Trade Statistics of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. In 1941, the Division of Foreign Trade Statistics moved to the Census Bureau.

Today, the Census Bureau works closely with the U.S. Treasury Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis to collect foreign trade statistics.

For example, the Census Bureau published data in May 2024 statistics showing that the value of imported goods and services was $336.7 billion and exports totaled 261.7 billion. Imports from Mexico ($43.9 billion), South Korea ($12.3 billion) and Italy ($7 billion) were the highest on record, while the quantity of imported crude oil (212 million barrels) was the highest since July 2019.

Largest export product categories (year-to-date) included: Transportation Equipment ($105.5 billion); Chemicals ($105.1 billion); Oil and Gas ($75 billion); Machinery, Except Electronic Products ($58.1 billion); Petroleum and Coal Products ($51.8 billion; and Computers and Electronic Products ($51.2 billion).

Learn more about the how we collect import and export data and the availability of foreign trade statistics at our International Trade webpage.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Maritime Administration

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U.S. Marshals

Three years after Theodore Roosevelt graduated from Harvard University, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him to the U.S. Civil Service Commission in 1889. He served on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners beginning in 1895 and President William McKinley appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897.

He accepted the Republican Party's nomination for New York governor and defeated Augustus Van Wyck in 1898. When Vice President Garret Hobart died in 1899, Republicans nominated him as William McKinley running mate in the 1900 U.S. Presidential Election. During that campaign Roosevelt's held hundreds of rallies to fire up crowds against Democrat William Jennings Bryan and running mate Adlai Stevenson. The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won a decisive victory on November 6, 1900.

Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition on September 6, 1901, and he died 8 days later. Roosevelt rushed to Buffalo, NY, where cabinet secretaries and dignitaries, including Secretary of War Elihu Root, Attorney General Philander Knox, and Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, watched as U.S. District Court Judge John R. Hazel administered the oath of office to Theodore Roosevelt.

During his presidency, Roosevelt broke up monopolies; improved the safety of food and drugs; and conserved wilderness areas. On the international stage, he mediated a peace deal ending the Russo-Japanese War; helped avert conflict between Germany, France, and Great Britain over control of Morocco; and oversaw the settlement of disputed Alaskan borders.

Perhaps most importantly, Roosevelt supported the 1903 Panamanian rebellion against Columbia that secured a swath of land through the Isthmus of Panama for the construction of the Panama Canal.

Learn more at our webpage dedicated to the 26th President of the United States.

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Visit https://www.census.gov/history every month for the latest Census History Home Page!