Panama and Beyond: Letters from Cuba, Panama, and Steamship Travel along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts

Sail into a bygone era on steamship journeys along our Atlantic and Pacific coasts with a junior engineer from the yet-to-be-opened Panama Canal, his independent and curious cousin, his uncle who has never been farther west than upper New York State, and his aunt visiting her sister on a San Diego ranch. The letters they mail home turn up a century later and send William’s granddaughter on a vicarious journey in their footsteps. What in a Costa Rica port was manufactured in Vermont? How is a tugboat like Mark Twain’s donkey? Is the Santa Maria volcano still active? A single sentence about the Sosostres wreck exhumes three versions of its story. Frigatebirds sleep while flying, mangroves are essential to planetary health, and possibly a postage stamp blocked Captain Eads’ proposal for a ship railway in Nicaragua. Debby Detering, the granddaughter, deciphered faded ink and smudged pencil to take you sailing along in the Age of Steamships to Central American ports and serendipitous side trips with passengers whose weeks aboard ship gave them no time for boredom. The book is illustrated with historic photos, period postcards, family photos, and current views of sites the travelers visited. This edition has been edited for flowable text by reducing the illustrations to 77 from 175 in the print edition. Read more