A drive through the beautiful, like a chessboard designed city on a small peninsula gives you an idea of its historic importance, former glamour and its negligence in the last decades. Colon has been founded in 1850 in order to construct the first transcontinental railway during the Californian gold rush. Later its English speaking population, originated from the Antilles, was a great support for the construction of the Canal, its operation and for the presence of US military bases.