Afro-Panamanian
In 1904 when the construction of the Panama Canal was taken over by the United States for the failure of the French company, will again resort to the West Indian worker. Although between 1904 and 1914 the vast majority of Afro-West Indians who arrived in Panama did a one-year contract with the idea of returning to their home islands once the offshore project, after construction of the canal many Afro-Antillean stayed in Panama. Afro-West Indians who remained in Panama many got jobs in the Canal Zone and became the largest immigrant group in Panama. On the subject of Afro-Antillean Panama, Leslie B. Rout said that when the canal was opened in 1914, some 20,000 African-West Indians remained in Panama.
William Merrill Whitman
From 1935 to 1939, Whitman was the legal editor for the West Publishing Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. Whitman began his long relationship (ending in 1972) with the Panama Canal the following year when he was admitted to the Panama Canal Zone Bar and began undertaking legal work for the Panama Railway, the Panama Canal Company, and the government of the Panama Canal Zone.