Over 100,000 people worked on the canal. Most worked for a year. Few stayed longer than two years. Some got discouraged and gave up. Some died. Two chief engineers quit.
But still, thousands remained and worked. Together, they built one of the most important waterways in the world.
What united the known and the unknown heroes of the Panama Canal? Their sense of mission. As one worker wrote, “I felt that I was part and parcel of the greatest enterprise of all the ages.”