History - 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 USMS Comptroller
James A. Shealey. On right, Canal Zone Marshal Joseph E. Gogins closes the office
for the last time

Panama Canal Zone District Courthouse
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. |