For centuries, Panama served as a natural bridge for global trade. Mule trains hauled treasure over stone-paved trails, riverboats floated gold and silver down the Chagres River to Caribbean ports like Portobelo, guarded by the cannons of Fort San Lorenzo, and later, the world’s first transcontinental railroad ferried passengers and cargo from ocean to ocean.
This photo journey looks back at the routes that carried the world across Panama’s isthmus long before the first lock opened in the Panama Canal.
