Panamas oldest bridge gets makeover

Preventative maintenance work is underway on one of Panama’s most historic monuments.

Less than 27 years after Columbus “discovered” America, settlers on the Isthmus began crossing El Puente Del Rey (The Bridge of the King), the entrance and exit to the first city of Panama.

The city was founded in 1519 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias de Ávila and became the starting point of expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire in Peru.
It was the stopover point of one of the most important trade routes in the history of the American continent leading to the fairs of Nombre de Dios and Portobelo, from where most of the gold and silver that Spain took from the Americas was shipped back to Spain.
The bridge remained in constant use for over 150 years until the city was destroyed by a devastating fire, in 1671, when it was torched after being attacked by the English buccaneer, Sir Henry Morgan, which led to the building of what we now call Casco Viejo, eight kilometers away.
But the bridge still stands alongside a heavily trafficked road in Panama Viejo. It is considered one of the "weakest" structures in the ruins of the original city .
The maintenace work consists of clearing vegetation and reviewing of the vault of the bridge. It was last rehabilitated in the summer of 2008 as part of an ongoing conservation program.