• Digitization

    A Digital Reunion

    December 19, 2025 /
    A group of children from the Cristobal Nursery School in the Canal Zone 1944 stand in front of a school bus. The driver stands to the right of the photo.
    Students from Mrs. Boynton's Kindergarten class at Curundu Elementary School sit for their class picture.
    A group of children and adults stand outside on a staircase on the on ground in front of a school building in Gamboa. The school is closing after 50 years. There is a banner that says Gamboa Road Runners.
    A group of students from the Canal Zone College stand outside under the Bridge of the Americas in green caps and gowns.
    Students from the Balboa High School class of 1933 stand in front of the school building in a group.
    A Pedro Miguel Kindergarten Promotion Certificate from May 29, 1940. It includes a group photograph of the students sitting outside.
    A group of graduating students and adults gathered outside of the school building for the La Boca Public School in 1935
    A group photograph from the Los Rios Elementary School 1887-1888 yearbook.
    A page from the 1954 El Pacifico yearbook of Paraiso High School showing the headshots of the class of 1954.
    A group of graduating students from the St. Mary school in Balboa, class of 1957, stand together on the steps of a building.
    A group of fifth grade students from Ft. Kobbe Elementary Curundu students stand outside for a photograph in 1954-55..
    A group of children from Kid Kindergarten sit near a concrete staircase. The photo was taken in March 1943.

    A white sweater with a red letter B for Balboa High School on one side.

    One major focus of our digitization campaign is to scan as many materials as possible about Canal schools. We have made exciting progress and wanted to share some of the latest additions in our last blog post of this year’s series.

    Left: Varsity Sweater from Balboa High School. Gift of Vicki Sizemore. 2006.009.001.

    We are compiling a history of the schools and have been hard at work locating information and scanning images. We started with Balboa and have enjoyed mapping the transition from the original wooden school to the concrete school built on the same location in 1917, and the move of the high school to a building nearby.

    A real photo postcard taken from the stairs of the Panama Canal administration building looking down at the grass area called the Prado. The wooden school building is on the left side of the image.
    A real photo postcard taken from the stairs of the Panama Canal administration building looking down at the grass area called the Prado. The new concrete school building is on the left side of the image.

    This wonderful photo album of the construction of the new Balboa High School building that opened in 1942 was recently put up in our digital collection.

    An aerial photograph of Balboa, Canal Zone that shows both buildings of Balboa Elementary School and Balboa High School.
    Aerial Photograph of Balboa Schools, 1962-1979. Gift of Anne Desmond Abele. II.2019.999.28.
    A still photograph from the video that shows a crowd outside of the Balboa High School building.

    You can follow Balboa High School all the way to May 15, 1999 and watch a video of the final graduation ceremony. Click here to watch. Or read the May 1999 issue of the Parrakeet.

    The front page of the May 1999 issue of the Balboa High School newspaper The Parrakeet. There is a group photograph of students from the school sitting on the stairs of the Panama Canal administration building.
    Balboa High School, The Parakeet Commemorative Edition, May 1999

    The collection also illustrates the history of student life – sports, dances, and probably a few days of skipping school. Click on an image to enlarge the slideshow and see some additional captions.

    For three years in a row one of the most frequent questions we got was about the Curundu school publications going online and we can finally say, yes, they are online!

    Click on the links to look at Cougar’s Cache and Cougar’s Pride. Cougar’s Scratch is coming soon.

    A group of students walking into Curundu Jr. High School. The image is a page from a yearbook.
    A yellow and black embroidery patch that says Cougars.
    Curundu Junior High School Cougars Patch. 2000.35.12. Gift of Richard Williams.

    In addition to the yearbooks, school publications like newspapers, creative writing journals, and newsletters are also available and text searchable. They include the Balboa School News, the Banquet Bugle (BHS), The Chatterbox (Diablo Heights Elementary), Deviled Ham (Canal Zone College), The Fledgling (Balboa Junior High), Isthmian Inklings (BHS), The Parakeet (BHS), Saltwater Papaya (Canal Zone College), Sun Dial (Cristobal Jr. Sr. High), Tiger Pause (Cristobal Jr. Sr. High), Tiger Tales (Cristobal Jr. Sr. High), Trade Wind (CHS), Zephyr (CHS), and Zephyrus: The Magazine of the Arts (BHS).

    The cover of the Saltwater Papaya Spring 1977 issue of a publication by the Canal Zone College. A group of children are playing with toy trucks underneath a covered breezeway at the school. Both the United States and Panama flags are flying.
    The cover of the 1982 Cristobal High School publication the Sundial. It is the Senior Edition. There is a group photo of the senior students and three short announcements about commencement exercises, prom, and the senior banquet.

    Someone recently gifted us the final issue of the Rainbow City Jr. Sr. High School school newsletter Arco Iris. It’s the only issue we have! Do you have any others that you could share with us? We are also looking for additional issues of the Arco Iris or Apex yearbooks.

    Left: Arco Iris, 1977.

    The front page of the Rainbow City Jr. St. High School school newsletter the Arco Iris from 1977. It has articles and photographs.

    A number of photo albums and about the schools are also in the digital collection.

    Canal Zone Schools Photo History Album, 1904-1953. 2011.999.148.

    Latin American Schools Album. 2002.022.008. (This album is only partially digitized as of posting)

    Panama Canal College Album, 1980-1989. 2002.022.007. (This album is only partially digitized as of posting)

    The next batch of items waiting to be scanned and put online includes hundreds of school related items like photographs and photo sets, scrapbooks, programs, invitations, handbooks, and more publications so keep checking the digital collection for more.

    We hope you have enjoyed this year’s fall series on our Digitization Campaign and a big thank you to everyone who has supported us.

    Zonian Yearbook, Balboa High School, 1958
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  • Uncategorized

    Welcome to the Team, Isabella!

    December 17, 2025 /

    We are thrilled to introduce you to a new member of the UF team: Isabella Loya.

    Isabella has been working with the Panama Canal Museum Collection since August this year, but before that she worked as a student assistant in our Latin American & Caribbean Collection. Isabella is the person responsible for scanning so many amazing treasures and making them available online. Isabella position is fully funded by the generosity of our supporters, so thanks to everyone who has contributed in the past couple of years. And now we’ll let Isabella tell you a bit more about herself and her interests. Thanks!

    Hello all!  

    My name is Isabella Loya and I am the new Imaging Assistant for the Panama Canal Museum Collection. I have been working at the George A. Smathers Libraries system since I began my undergraduate degree at UF. I am currently pursuing two master’s degrees here at UF in Museum Studies and Latin American Studies.  

    I am originally from Miami, which allowed me to grow around so many different cultures. This further deepened my respect for them and the need to preserve them. I hope that the work I do will uplift and raise awareness for the preservation of these varying cultures. 

    I am passionate about cultural preservation and making this collection available for public access. This job aligns with what I want to do in the Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums field. I hope that the work being done on this collection will serve as many people as possible. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.  

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  • Uncategorized

    Welcoming New Team Members!

    December 5, 2025 /

    We are thrilled to be welcoming two new student assistants working on special projects with the collection involving digitization, description of objects, creating videos, and other activities. We want to give them an opportunity to introduce themselves to everyone:

    Photo of graduate student Caroline Davis.

    Hi! My name is Caroline Davis and am a second-year graduate student in Museum Studies! I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and attended Flagler College in St. Augustine studying Art History for my undergraduate work. I am interested in archival studies and collections management, especially oral history methods.

    I have been working in the Smathers Libraries’ Special & Area Studies Collections for almost a year in various projects. Currently, I am working with the PCMC on processing and digitizing collections related to the Balboa High School.

    Photo of graduate student Azariah Rodriguez

    Hello! My name is Azariah Rodriguez and I am a first-year graduate student in the Museum Studies program. For the next few months, I will be working with the Panama Canal Museum Collection here at Smathers Library to curate stories from everyday life in the Canal Zone. My first projects since starting has been finding what I can on the popular Cayuco Race and Canal construction equipment.

    I am very excited to continue working with this amazing collection!

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