erate with other governments of the Pan American Union in reconnaissance surveys to develop the facts.
These surveys began in June 1930 in cooperation with the governments of Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala under the general direction of E. W. James of the BPR. In the course of the next 3 years, the engineers of the BPR and of the Central American republics covered 900 miles on foot or horseback through dense jungles and rugged mountains to make the ground reconnaissance. They were greatly aided by aerial photographs of the most promising routes made by the U.S. Army Air Corps from its bases in the Canal Zone—one of the earliest extensive uses of aerial photographic methods for highway location in unexplored country.
In January 1934, the Bureau of Public Roads reported to the Secretary of State that of the 3,250 miles of the route from the U.S. border to Panama City, 1,265 miles were already passable for motor vehicles the year round and 1,000 more were passable in the dry season and that it was entirely practicable to build a motor road over the remainder.[1]
Congress appropriated $1,075 million in June 1934 to start construction of the Inter-American Highway in cooperation with the countries through which it would pass. The BPR then worked out cooperative agreements with Panama, Honduras and Guatemala to build three large bridges. Under these agreements, the United States furnished the plans and engineering supervision, the steel and cement, and some of the heavy equipment, while the cooperating countries supplied labor and local materials.[2]
The assistance provided by Congress was little more than seed money to induce the Central American republics to improve their highway organizations and to step up their own construction efforts. This purpose was largely accomplished. On work for which the United States provided $680,000 up to 1938, the cooperating countries provided $710,000.[3]
More importantly, the BPR made a determined
effort to train engineers to carry on the work:
In each country where cooperative work has been conducted, a Bureau engineer has been placed in charge as resident engineer. All other positions have been filled with local engineers, most of whom have been trained in the United States. It has been the policy to aid each country in developing its own highway engineers capable of carrying on future highway programs according to the most modern standards.[4]
In 1938 Congress authorized the President to provide technical assistance to countries of the Pan American Union for planning and building roads. Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador requested such assistance, whereupon BPR engineers were assigned as advisers to those countries in 1939. And in May 1939 the Export-Import Bank requested the Secretary of Agriculture to assign highway engineers to assist the Bank in evaluating applications for highway loans in Central and South America. This request was filled by assigning experienced BPR engineers to the Bank. These small tentative efforts provided valuable experience for the huge foreign highway-aid program carried on by the BPR after World War II.
Throughout the 1930’s, work proceeded in a rather leisurely manner on the Inter-American Highway, limited largely by the financial abilities of the cooperating countries. It required the stimulus of war to get the program really moving—a stimulus that was soon to be applied.
REFERENCES
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