Cristóbal, Colón
Cristóbal is a port town and county in Colón District, Colón Province, Panama with a population of 49,422 as of 2010. It is located on the western edge of Manzanillo Island, on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal.
Cristóbal Colón is the Spanish translation for Christopher Columbus, the Genovese explorer for whom these places were named.
Early history
What came to be known as "Old Cristóbal," and today consists of the port of Cristóbal, was first built by the Panama Railroad Company in the 1850s at the time they dredged part of the 650 acres (2.6 km2) of virgin swamp on Manzanillo Island to build their headquarters and port of arrival for railway travelers. In the 1880s, the French Inter-Oceanic Canal Company arrived to find the port of Colón (then Aspinwall) just a few streets wide and long while the rest of Manzanillo Island was still a swamp. They used soil from their canal excavation works to create a landfill on a coral reef adjacent to the Panama Railroad's area of Colon. This new landfill area, upon which the French built their facilities, was called Christophe Colombe, a name which was translated in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón.
