JAY JOHNSON MORROW

Jay Johnson Morrow was born in Fairview, Virginia on February 20, 1870 He graduated from the Military Academy at West Point United States in 1891, where he received his assignment in the Corps. He graduated from the School of Engineering Applied en1894. He married Harriet M. Butler in 1895 and had no children (she died in 1935 and his ashes were scattered in the Chagres River). The next three years in the service were spent as an instructor of military engineering practices in West Point, then in 1898, he was sent to the Philippines where he served as military governor of the Province of Zambona 1901 to 1902 he worked as Commissioner of Engineering in the District of Columbia from 1907-1909.

Morrow served as Governor of the Panama Canal Zone from 1921 to 1924 President Harding appointed him to fill the vacancy that resulted following the resignation of Colonel Chester Harding.

In his first mission to the Panama Canal Zone I came appointed as a maintenance engineer from 1916 to 1917, and served as Acting Governor. This work was interrupted when the United States entered the First World War. Morrow arrived in France on May 12, 1918, head of the First American Army Engineer and Deputy Chief Engineer being of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).

The June 26, 1916 he was promoted from Colonel to Brigadier General and in December of the same year returned to the United States to deal with AA Field Humphreys, Virginia.

In June 1919, Morrow returned the Panama Canal maintenance engineer working in that capacity until March 1921, when he became Governor. It found confronted with the task of reorganization, a job that involved difficult and unpleasant task of reducing the labor force used in the Channel during the time of war.

Morrow was an ardent lover of opera and moved to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York since the early nineties as far away as the Canal Zone and Tacna-Arica, Chile, where he was a member from 1925 to 1929 the Special Commission that arbitrated boundary disputes between Chile and Bolivia.

In the Panama Canal, Morrow reorganized and reduced its number, workforce Canal Zone because of the war. I was interested in getting a large supply of reserve waters of Lake Gatun, an artificial body of water that supply the Canal, and conducted surveys on the Chagres River to build additional reserves. He also oversaw many improvements to the Canal.

Morrow also oversaw the construction of a special dock that gave the system navigable river dredgers, a high degree of efficiency and expanded the most dangerous part of the transit curve around the Gaillard Cut. Both Pedro Miguel Locks and Miraflores, were improved during his term as Governor.