I've recently re-read some letters that I possess from a man who walked from the U.S. to Venezuela in 1933. One of the letters, dated December 21, 1933 includes a snippet concerning the San Juan lagoon along the eastern shore of Nicaragua. This is an original concept location for a canal to split Central America and thought it might interest some:
"At daybreak this a.m. I started out again and for 25 cents rented a cayuca to paddle me across the San Juan lagoon some 3 miles to here. The San Juan lagoon is the original point of entry from the Caribbean, on the proposed Nicaraguan Canal. This from personal experience is going to be a dead issue from now on out. The shores of the lagoon are strewn with decaying machinery. I passed one lot of 5 big steam dredges - all sunk and rusting away - now only bird nests and monuments to blasted hopes. Along the shores there were many boats and boilers and general excavating material, all being reclaimed by the jungle. Millions of dollars have been put into this project in earlier years, and as late as a few years ago a commission was working here on a U.S. survey. But Nicaraguan hostilites put a stop to it and now the Panama Canal is being enlarged instead. Greytown is a dead and decaying town. It was once in line to be one of the important ports of the world - instead it has dwindled from a population of 5000 to not over 100 people. The jungle has grown over the houses and the place is only a ghost of its past."
Apparently, there was an attempt to dredge across Nicaragua but a failed attempt.....I wonder if some of the old equipment is still rusting away at Greytown today.
An engineering feat that never was, I guess.
"At daybreak this a.m. I started out again and for 25 cents rented a cayuca to paddle me across the San Juan lagoon some 3 miles to here. The San Juan lagoon is the original point of entry from the Caribbean, on the proposed Nicaraguan Canal. This from personal experience is going to be a dead issue from now on out. The shores of the lagoon are strewn with decaying machinery. I passed one lot of 5 big steam dredges - all sunk and rusting away - now only bird nests and monuments to blasted hopes. Along the shores there were many boats and boilers and general excavating material, all being reclaimed by the jungle. Millions of dollars have been put into this project in earlier years, and as late as a few years ago a commission was working here on a U.S. survey. But Nicaraguan hostilites put a stop to it and now the Panama Canal is being enlarged instead. Greytown is a dead and decaying town. It was once in line to be one of the important ports of the world - instead it has dwindled from a population of 5000 to not over 100 people. The jungle has grown over the houses and the place is only a ghost of its past."
Apparently, there was an attempt to dredge across Nicaragua but a failed attempt.....I wonder if some of the old equipment is still rusting away at Greytown today.
An engineering feat that never was, I guess.
