Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tehuantepec

TEHUANTEPEC, an isthmus in Mexico, comprising the western extremities of the states of Vera Cruz and Oajaca, and limited eastwards by the states of Tabasco and Chiapas, thus lying between 16° and 18° N. lat. and 94° and 95° W. long. Between the Bay of Campeche on the north or Atlantic side and that of Tehuantepec on the south or Pacific side the distance in a bee line is only 125 miles. Here also the Sierra Madre falls rapidly from over 5000 feet in Chiapas to about 730 feet in the ridge skirting the Pacific coast, and leaving the rest of this district somewhat level, with a rise from the Atlantic of not more than 60 feet in the mile except at the Chivela Pass, where for 8 miles the gradients are about 116 feet per mile.

This favourable condition of the relief, combined with a relatively healthy climate subject only to dangerous insect pests in summer, has naturally attracted attention to the Tehuantepec isthmus, as offering peculiar advantages for interoceanic communication either by a navigable canal, a railway, or a ship railway. A first concession was made in 1841 by the Mexican Government to Don José de Garay, who had the land surveyed with a view to a canal, but who, after the war with the United States, surrendered his rights to Mr P. A. Hargous of New York. The company then organized to give effect to the Garay grant caused a fresh survey for a railway to be made in 1851, under the direction of the late General J. G. Barnard, But nothing came of this or of another railway project in 1857, when a third survey was executed, under the direction of Col. W. H. Sidell. Then the “Tehuantepec Railway Company,” formed in 1870 in New York, and reorganized in 1879, obtained a concession from the Mexican Government to construct the “Tehuantepec Railway”; but, after a few miles were made, the work was suspended, and in 1882 the Government contracted with private individuals for the completion of the line, which was to be 190 miles long, and to run from the mouth of the Goatzacoalcos (Coatzacoalcos) river on the Atlantic to the port of Salina Cruz on the Pacific. The work was carried to Minatitlan, a distance of 25 miles, in 1884, and was to have been completed in 1885; but since then operations appear to have been suspended for want of means. A Tehuantepec ship railway is also projected, as it is expected that most of the trade between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States will be attracted to this route, which shortens the distance between New York and San Francisco by 1477 miles, and between New Orleans and the same place by 2334 miles, as compared with that by the Panama railway and future canal.}}|1}} Tehuantepec, the town which gives its name to the isthmus, bay, and neighbouring lagoon, stands on the river Tehuantepec, 16 miles above its mouth on the Pacific, where it develops a shallow and somewhat exposed harbour. Of the population, estimated at 14,000, a large number are civilized and industrious Indians engaged in cotton-weaving and on the salt-works. Indigo is grown in the district, and there are productive pearl-fisheries in the bay. Amongst the exports are cochineal and a purple dye extracted from a shellfish abounding on the coast.