Nicaragua Canal
1825 The waterway was considered and surveyors charted the route contacting the United States governemtn to seek financing and the engineering technology needed for building the shipping route, to the advantage of both nations.
1830s It was stated that the waterway would be 278 km (172.7 mi) in length and would generally follow the San Juan River from the Caribbean Sea to Lake Nicaragua, then go through a series of locks and tunnels from the lake to the Pacific Ocean. The plan however, was not approved. The United States was worried about the poverty and political instability of Nicaragua, as well as the rival strategic and economic interests of the British government, which controlled both British Honduras (later Belize) and the Mosquito Coast.
1849, the Nicaraguan government signed a contract with the United States businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt to grant his Accessory Transit Company the exclusive right to construct a waterway within 12 years. The temporary route operated successfully, quickly becoming one of the main avenues of trade between New York City and San Francisco.
The Nicaraguan Canal Commission carried out the most thorough hydrological survey yet of the San Juan River and its watershed, and in 1899 concluded that an interoceanic project was feasible at a total cost of US$138 million.
In the late 19th century, the United States government negotiated with President José Santos Zelaya to lease the land to build a canal through Nicaragua. Luis Felipe Corea, the Nicaraguan minister in Washington, wrote to United States Secretary of State John Hay expressing the Zelaya government's support for such a canal. The United States signed the Sánchez–Merry Treaty with Nicaragua in case the negotiations for a canal through Panama fell through, although the treaty was later rejected by John Hay.
Before Corea completed a draft of the Nicaragua proposal, Congress was considering the Spooner Act to authorize the Panama Canal. In addition to the promise of earlier completion of the Panama Canal, opponents of the Nicaraguan canal cited the risk of volcanic activity at the Momotombo volcano. They favoured construction of a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.[1]
Read the series of articles on The Nicaragua Canal from The Engineer
"Since the practical collapse of the Panama Canal and the death of Captain Eads, who was pressing his Tehuantepec Ship Railway project before the people and Government of the United States, increased attention has been given to the route through Nicaragua. Measures have been introduced, and some of them have passed the Legislature of the United States, showing that considerable interest is being taken in the project by influential people in, that country. During the last session a Bill was brought before the Senate by Mr. Sherman, which, if accepted by both Houses, would have pledged the Government to guarantee £20,000,000 sterling to be expended for the purpose of the Canal Company; it being the intent and object of the Act to secure the construction of the Nicaragua Canal by the company, with the aid of the United States, upon the basis of the concessions granted by the Republics of Nicaragua and Costa Rica and the contracts and engagements hitherto made by the Maritime Canal Company, of Nicaragua..." Read more
- No I The Engineer 1891/06/12.
- No II The Engineer 1891/07/03.