George Washington Goethals is best known for this:
George Washington Goethals is best known for building the Panama Canal. Goethals, born in New York on June 29, 1858, graduated from West Point in 1880 and was commissioned in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. President Theodore Roosevelt selected him to be the chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission in 1907. He soon took complete charge of construction work and government in the Canal Zone. The Panama Canal opened in 1914 and Goethals was appointed by Woodrow Wilson as the first governor of the Canal Zone. He died on January 21, 1928.
