After Balboa’s discovery, it didn’t take long for Spain’s royal court to imagine a canal crossing through Panama. Unfortunately, given the technology of the time, building it was all but impossible. In the 1500s, when Spain’s King Charles I ordered officials in Panama to study the construction of a new canal there, one replied, “There is not a prince in the world with the power to accomplish this.”
It was nevertheless an important overland route for centuries to come – and when an American consortium finally succeeded in building a railroad through Panama’s dense jungle in 1855, the line proved immensely popular. Many locals, however, weren’t happy: a year after it opened, riots broke out between some Panamanians and the train’s passengers.