The Port of Panama City is a port on the
Gulf Intracoastal Waterway
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway is the portion of the Intracoastal Waterway located along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is a navigable inland waterway running approximately from Carrabelle, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas.
The waterwa ...
in
Panama City, Florida
Panama City is a city in and the county seat of Bay County, Florida, United States. Located along U.S. Highway 98 (US 98), it is the largest city between Tallahassee and Pensacola. It is the more populated city of the Panama City–Lynn ...
.
The port is overseen by the Port Authority of Panama City, which was initiated in 1945.
History
The deed for the land of the Port Panama City was conducted for
Panama City Shipbuilding Corporation
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a List of transcontinental countries#North America and South America, transcontinental country spanning the Central America, southern ...
on January 21, 1939. The land was known as the Wainwright Shipyard because of the high production of ships and tankers created for World War II from July 1942 to 1945. At the time, the shipyard had 18,000 to 30,000 workers who created 102
liberty ships
Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass ...
and 6 tankers. By 1945, the Panama City Port Authority was created, which helped the government convert the shipyard into a dismantling area for ships for scrap.
During the 1950s, the port authority started granting leasing areas for industrial development. The dismantling process the government granted continued into the mid-1960s, when the city bought the land from the government in order to expand the industrial development for the port authority. Formal operations for the current port were developed in 1967 with the creation of a deepwater berth - a pierspace capable of accommodating a
Panamax sized ship. Further developments included warehouses, cargo equipment, and tenant bases, which helped the port expand.
References
External links
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{{Florida railroads
Port cities and towns of the Florida Gulf coast
Ports and harbors of the Florida Gulf coast
1945 establishments in Florida
Buildings and structures in Panama City, Florida