Panama Canal Zone

The passing of an era for the Marshals Service was marked on March 31, 1982 when the U.S. Marshal for the District of the Canal Zone closed the door to his office there for the last time. The closing of the U.S. Marshal's office was in conjunction with the termination on that date of the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court in Panama, and was marked by a closing ceremony in the District Court presided over by U.S. District Judge Morey L. Sear.

The ceremony was attended by various U.S. and local officials as well as by Marshal Joseph E. Gogins, former Marshal Anthony J. Furka, and U.S. Marshals Service Comptroller James A. Shealey.

Marshal Gogins was the last of 10 U.S. Marshals appointed to the District of the Canal Zone since its establishment in 1914. The closing of the Marshal's office in Panama marked only the second time in the nearly 200-year history of the Marshals Service that a Marshal's office has been deactivated.

The first closing was on May 20, 1943, when the U.S. Marshal's office in Shanghai (which supported the U.S. Court for China) was closed following the United States ratification of a treaty with China in which it relinquished extraterritorial rights in that country. The U.S. Marshal's office in China was first established in 1906 following an Act of Congress, passed in the wake of our country's involvement in China following the Chinese Boxer Rebellion.