We photographed the lighthouse at Gambo as we drove by on the morning of December 30, 2009, on our way to bird along Pipeline Road. The lighthouses of Panama are all associated with passage through the Panama Canal. The Canal opened August 15, 1914 after ten years of U.S. construction following earlier work by a French company. The U. S. maintained extraterritorial jurisdiction over the Canal Zone until Panama assumed full operation at the end of 1999.