Bridge of the Americas

This guide to the Bridge of the Americas in Panama City opens on its dedication day, October 12, 1962, when protesters broke through the barricades mid-ceremony and tore the plaques off the steel. You'll hear how the fight was over the name, not the bridge: Panama's National Assembly had decreed it the Bridge of the Americas, while the Americans dedicated it that same morning as the Thatcher Ferry Bridge, honoring a former Canal Commission official. The guide follows both names running side by side for years, official on the sign and unofficial on every Panamanian tongue, as engineers kept the shipping lane open beneath the mile-long steel arch overhead. Look down at the water and picture the ceremony that never got to finish calmly.