A canal makes history.

WITH LESS THAN tWO years remaining until the Panama Canal is officially transferred from U.S. to Panamanian control, Panama has inaugurated a beautiful new museum chronicling the history of the world's most important waterway. The Museo del Canal Interoceanico de Panama, located in the capital's Casco Viejo district, tells the courageous, inspiring, and sometimes violent story of the Panama Canal's design and construction through paintings, exhibits, and artifacts spanning hundreds of years--from a sixteenth-century feasibility study ordered by Spain's King Carlos I to documents authorizing Panama's takeover of the canal at noon on December 31, 1999.

The new tourist attraction is pan of the government's plan to revitalize Panama City's historic center, with help from the European Union, the Institute Nacional de Cultura, and various nonprofit organizations.

"The importance of the Panama Canal Museum," says a government statement, "is underscored by the necessity of educating the public about the canal's history, within the historic process Panama is now experiencing as a consequence of the Carter-Torrijos Treaties, and the imminent transfer of the canal to Panamanian administration."

Politics aside, a visit to this museum--inaugurated in September 1997--gives visitors a fascinating look at one of the world's most impressive engineering achievements. The museum itself is housed in a colonial structure fronting the city's Plaza de la Catedral. Built in 1875 by French architect Georges Loew, it began life as the Grand Hotel. Only six years later, it was sold to the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique to be used as France's canal administration headquarters. The U.S., which bought all rights to the project in 1903 after France's canal construction efforts failed, took over the building and used it as its headquarters until 1913.

When the U.S. finally inaugurated its own administration building in Balboa Heights, the Panamanian government converted the vacant structure into a post office--which is how it remained until 1996. Now, thanks to a $5 million renovation project, the building has come full circle and once again occupies an important place in canal history.

At the entrance to the four-story building is a lantern from a lighthouse built by the French in 1879. The first section of the museum is dominated by pre-Columbian artifacts, including a funeral mask, pottery, jewelry, and sculptures. In a little alcove are four maps, dating from 1754, of the Isthmus of Panama, while various diagrams depict trans-isthmian life during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Also on display are propaganda posters urging U.S. settlers to California; Panama Railroad stock certificates dated 1865; bottles for making moonshine; guns used by the settlers, called 49ers, to defend themselves; as well as the scissors used to cut the ribbon on the graceful Puente de las Americas bridge, which cost $20 million when completed in 1962 and still spans the canal just outside Panama City.

History is filled with little-known quirks, and this endeavor was no exception. The U.S. government originally wanted to build its canal in Nicaragua, but that idea fell apart after lobbyists for Panama mailed each senator a 5-cent Nicaraguan stamp depicting the angry-looking Momotombo volcano. The propaganda ploy worked, and a huge blowup of that little stamp--issued in 1900--is now on display for all to see. So are photographs of Richard Halliburton, who in 1928 swam the canal and had to across shell out a transit fee of 36 cents based on his 150-pound weight. At the other extreme is the Rhapsody of the Seas cruise ship, which last year crossed the Panama Canal, paying a whopping $153,662.66 in fees.

Political buffs will appreciate the huge photograph of the 1977 signing of the Carter-Torrijos Treaties and a framed letter written and signed by President Carter, congratulating the Panamanian people for the achievement. Next to it is the actual tally sheet used by Alaska senator Mike Gravel for the U.S. Senate's famous roll call vote.

For more information on the Panama Canal Museum, write to the Museo del Canal Interoceanico at Apartado 1213, Zona 1, Panama, Republic of Panama, or call [phone] or 211-1650. The museum's e-mail address is [e-mail]; Website:http://www.sinfo.net/ pcmuseum.