Tehuantepec

Tehuantepec, a town of Oaxaca, Mexico, 10 miles above the mouth of the river Tehuantepec, with 25,000 inhabitants (mostly Indians) within its municipality. The isthmus on which it stands is only 120 miles wide, and a canal here between the two oceans has been dreamt of ever since Cortez' day. A concession was granted and an Anglo-American company formed in 1850; but the political insecurity of the country and the construction of the Panamá railway combined to bring it to an end. An interoceanic railway company founded in 1879 also allowed its concession to lapse; Captain Eads's ship-railway remained a project only; but an ordinary railway was finally opened in the year 1894.