CANAL ZONE

CANAL ZONE.

Definitive stamps.
View of Panama Canal and railway.
Stamp issued on 25.06.1929.
Face value: 5 cents of US dollar.
Pinting: Recess.
Size: 40 x 25 mm.

Catalogs
- Michel No. 72A.
- Scott No. 107.
- StampWorld No. 72.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 109.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 79.

The first proposal for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama to join the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was made in 1529, shortly after the Spanish conquest, by Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón, a lieutenant of Vasco Núñez de Balboa, but it took more than three centuries to come true. The concession to build the canal was granted by the then government of Colombia to a French company in 1878 for a period of 99 years. In November 1903, after the independence of the Republic of Panama, the United States negotiated with the provisional Panamanian government the cession of an area of 20 mi wide (32 km) on the isthmus where the canal was built, called Canal Zone (Zona del Canal), which was formally ceded on May 4, 1904 in exchange for an annual financial compensation; however, over time the area became a political and strategic enclave of the United States, until it was reintegrated to Panama through the Torrijos-Carter Treaties on October 1, 1979. The United States issued stamps for the Canal Zone from June 1904 to October 1978.

Construction of the 82 km (51 mi) long canal was completed in 1913, and the seaway was officially inaugurated on August 15, 1914. The works had begun, with great difficulty, in 1881 under the direction of Ferdinand de Lesseps, but were interrupted by economic problems in 1888, and were not resumed until 1904. 

-
Thanks to Dragan Buškulić for his contribution (https://worldofstamp2.wordpress.com/).