Colon is the 2nd largest city in Panama. Colon is a sea port on the Caribbean Sea coast of Panama. The city lies near the Caribbean Sea entrance to the Panama Canal.
A little history courtesy of Wikipedia.
The city of Colon was founded by Americans in 1850 as the Atlantic terminus of the Panama Railroad, then under construction to meet the gold rush demand for a fast route to California. For a number of years early in its history, the sizable United States émigré community called the town Aspinwall after Panama Railroad promoter William Henry Aspinwall, while the city's Hispanic community called it Colón, in honor of Christopher Columbus. The city was founded on the western end of a treacherously marshy islet known as Manzanillo Island. As part of the Panama Railroad's construction, the island was connected to the Panamanian mainland by a causeway and part of the island was drained to allow the erection of permanent buildings.
Much of the city was burned during a Colombian civil war in 1885, and again in a massive fire in 1915.
In 1948, the southeastern corner of Manzanillo Island was designated the Colón Free Trade Zone. The Free Trade Zone has since been expanded through land reclamation on the Folks River and annexation of parts of France Field (now Enrique Adolfo Jiménez Airport) and Coco Solo.
During its heyday, Colón was home to dozens of night clubs, cabarets and movie theaters. It was known for its citizens' civic pride, orderly appearance and outstanding native sons and daughters. Politically-instigated riots in the 1960s destroyed the city's beautiful municipal palace and signaled the start of the city's decline, which was further accelerated by the military dictatorships of Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega from 1968-1989.
The Free Trade Zone is a gigantic entity at the Atlantic gateway to the Panamá Canal, dedicated to re-export an enormous variety of merchandise to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is an example of a free port and is the largest such port in the Americas and second largest in the world. It started operations in 1948 and occupies about 600 acres (2.4 km2). It is located near the Atlantic Entrance of the Panamá Canal. It is divided in two large areas: one located in Colón, segregated from the city by a wall, and the other relatively new, in the Harbour area, which is designated for warehouses covering 130 acres (0.53 km2) and at a distance of only 400 yards (370 m) from the Colón commercial sector.
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