Colon, Panama

Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Colon, Panama
Colόn is a seaport on the Caribbean Sea coast of Panama. The city lies bear the Caribbean sea entrance to the Panama Canal. It is the capital of Panama's Colόn Province and has traditionally been known as Panama’s second city. Colόn was originally located entirely on Manzanillo Island, surrounded by Limon Bay, Manzanillo Bay, and the Folks River. Since the disestablishment of the Canal Zone, the city’s limits have been redefined to include the former Canal Zone towns of Cristobal, Rainbow City, Margarita, and Coco Solo, as well as the former U>S> Army base of Fort Gulick.

The city was founded by Americans in 1850 as the Atlantic terminus of the Panama Railroad, then under construction to meet the gold rush demand for a fast route to California . For a number of years early in its history, the sizable United States émigré community call the town Aspinwall after Panama Railroad promoter William Henry Aspinwall, while the city’s Hispanic community called it Colόn, in honor of Christopher Columbus. The City was founded on the western End of a treacherously marshy islet known as Manzanillo Island. As part of the construction of the Panama Railroad, the island was connected to the Panamanian mainland by a causeway and part of the island was drained to allow the erection of permanent buildings.

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