Gorgona (El Viejo) was a town for centuries in modern-day Panama before it was flooded to make way for the U.S. Panama Canal. It’s former site is underwater near the present day Gatun Locks.

It is Gorgona “El Viejo” because the residents of this town were expelled and offered to move to a new settlement, Nueva Gorgona, nearly 150 kilometers away off the Pacific Ocean and far away from the fertile Chagres River valley. Many found this settlement unsatisfactory and moved on, permanently dispersing this community. Nueva Gorgona is now a popular beach town with a recent surge of retirees from the United States, Canada, and Europe.

In modern understandings of Panama and the construction of the Panama Canal, the narrative leads us to believe that the towns destroyed to complete the Panama Canal were tiny, insignificant villages that had little to lose. The work of Marixa Lasso’s Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal has challenged this narrative.

This site extends upon Lasso’s work to show that Gorgona did exist, had a long history, and touched the lives of many people from around the world.