‘Lost’ history of Panama Canal is now found in exhibit at KC’s Linda Hall Library

In a year busy with centennials — World War I and Union Station — make room for the Panama Canal. It also has been 100 years since the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were joined by one of the wonders of the modern world.

That may seem to have little to do with Kansas City, but the Linda Hall Library has the “lost” papers of the office engineer for the Culebra Cut, the key section of the canal project that cut through the continental divide.

The papers of A.B. Nichols, inaccessible for more than 80 years, are now part of a series of remembrances that will begin with an exhibit opening tonight at the library and culminate in October with a visit by historian David McCullough, author of a book about the canal.

Even McCullough did not have access to the Nichols material, which includes about 1,200 photographs, 1,300 blueprints, 100 maps and more than 100 journals. Before they came to the Linda Hall Library, they were decaying on shelves in New York.

“They were technically lost,” said Lisa Browar, the library’s president. “Because if something isn’t cataloged, the general public or the research public can’t find it. And you can’t use what you can’t find.”