In 1514 Balboa built a crude road, from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, by cutting a path through the jungle. This road was about 30 - 40 miles
long, and soon after the building of the town of Panamá, was abandoned. There
were no permanent villages built along the route, which contributed to it
demise.
1515, Captain Antonio Tello de Guzmán used the overland trail
between Antigua and the Gulf of San Miguel. At the native village of Panamá, (a
Cueva word meaning "Place of Abundant Fish"), the natives told Guzmán of a
trail, going north, all the way to Porto Bello, past the site of the abandoned
town of Nombre de Diós. This trail had been used by the natives for centuries,
and was well laid out.
In 1517 Gaspar de Espinosa built the road that Alvitez had
discovered. Espinosa used 4000 natives as slave labor to build the
road.
Smooth river stones were laid on the trail. These stones were
covered with clay, and packed, to make a smooth surface. The Río Chagres was
bridged with very large boulders and large trunks were shaved flat, making a
road bed for the bridge.
By August of 1519, cobbled stone road, approximately 3 feet wide
ran from Nombre de Diós to Panamá. Nombre de Diós, lacked a good defensible
harbor, and a road was later built to connect Nombre de Diós to Puerto Bello in
the 1590's. This road, El Camino Real, was about 50 miles long, and was wide
enough, to allow two carts to cross one-an-other traveling in opposite
directions. The Spanish spared no expense in the construction of this
road.
In 1521, a Spaniard wrote the King describing his trip across
the Isthmus from Nombre de Diós to Panamá. He related that the first part of the
journey was the most difficult because of the rivers, the mountains, and the
thick forest. The trip from Panamá to San Lorenzo and then Porto Bello, was
easier then the return trip. This was OK, since the purpose of this route was to
insure that the treasures reached the Caribbean safely. This road served the
Spanish well for more than three centuries.
In 1671, this legendary trail was the route used by Henry Morgan
to sack Panama City.
During the 1849 Gold Rush in California, the Las Cruces Trail
was used again. 49er's used the Panamá Route, to get to California. The Las
Cruces Trail, had not been maintained for a long time, so was very difficult to
navigate, even for the sure footed mule. At best, this trip took 4 days; but
usually took much longer. Some travelers are known to have taken several weeks,
to make the crossing. The trekker had to face Yellow Fever, Malaria, and Chagres
Fever, great swarms of mosquitoes, snakes and bugs along the way. Once they
finally arrived in Panamá City, they would have to wait for a ship to take them
to California.
The only reminder today of the passage of the mule trains along
the Camino de Cruces, other than the old mule shoes that can still be found
along the trail, are footing points etched by the mules in the soft shale stone
that forms the base of stretches of the trail as it climbs and descends the
hills through the jungle.
Large portions of the remarkably well preserved old Spanish
colonial trail transverse deep ravines. The mules were forced repeatedly to use
of the same footing points as they climbed or descended. Mule footing points
have been found in several locations on the trail. They are quite prominent and
it is easy to see the shape of the mule shoes. The ascending footing points are
deep and round. The descending points are longer and more shallow with the
mule’s hooves sliding and forming a trough until a catch hold was reached.
The Soberania National
Park borders the Panama Canal and contains 9.5 kilometers of the Camino de
Cruces. Outside of the park, the Camino de Cruces is under increasing pressure
from land development, particularly the closer it gets to Panama City.
