Enid Hall was a resident of La Boca when it was a town in the Canal Zone inhabited predominately by West Indians (known as a Silver town or a Local-Rate town). When the town was removed in the mid-1950s, she and the other residents were relocated to other towns in the Canal Zone. Years later, she started a project to document her memories of La Boca as she knew it. She made lists of residents in each building as well as lists of employees and members of organizations. She used a 1943 map of La Boca to confirm building numbers. She also gathered a few other resources including a Thanksgiving Musical Program with information about some of the people and activities.
All of Enid Hall's materials have been scanned and the images are available online.
A student assistant is currently transcribing Enid's notes, and the transcriptions are available in spreadsheets.
The student is also attempting to identify images of the people and places included in Enid's notes. This is work is currently underway, so these lists are not finalized.
For example, if you want to use Notebook 2, you can view the scanned images.
You can view the transcription by opening the file named "Enid Hall-Notebook 2.xlsx".
When viewing the notebook spreadsheets, be aware that they include tabs at the bottom of the for each section of the spreadsheet. For example, Notebook 2 includes tabs for Building Numbers, Commissary, Clubhouse, Schools, etc., which are the various lists Enid Hall recorded in that notebook.
As part of this Enid Hall project, we are scanning maps and photos here at UF and identifying images in other archives (e.g., the National Archives or NARA) relating to La Boca circa 1910s-1950s. Some of these photos are from the National Archives, Photographs Related to the Operation and Development of the Panama Canal Zone, 1938 - 1960 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/535442
If you click on the "Search within this series" link on this page you can search for "La Boca" or other search terms within this set of photos.
The work to identify and capture these images is currently underway, so this is very much a work in progress. Files may be added, renamed, etc. If you have questions about any of these resources, contact Betsy Bemis or John Nemmers.
We are also attempting to identify buildings in the images using the maps, so there are a few photos that include building numbers on them.
Do not assume that these are correct. They are a best attempt at identifying building numbers based on the maps, but the dates do not always match up and the depictions in the images are often less than desirable. However, these should be fairly accurate to the best of our ability to determine.
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