History
The commander Diego Cueto and his helmsman, Pedro de Umbria, visited the region in 1506.
The Chagres River was explored in 1527 by Hernando de la Serna, who founded the town of Chagres at its mouth and built the fortress of San Lorenzo. Goods were transported on foot from Panama City to the coastal town of Cruces, and from there by sailboats on the river all the way to its mouth. This path, called Camino de Cruces, was very popular until the 18th century.
Henry Morgan traveled the Chagres River to attack Panama City in 1670-71.
It wasn't until the late 19th century that attention was once again focused on the river, this time as part of the planning of the Panama Canal. The Chagres River is the Panama Canal's chief source of water.
The river's upper basin is covered by dense tropical forests. To protect that ecosystem, Panama created Chagres National Park in 1985.
Read more about this topic: Chagres River
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)