Merv Rennich made Lee Fosburgh’s day with his visit to the new Panama Canal exhibit that opened at the Caterpillar Visitors Center on Friday.

Rennich, who spent five years in Latin America during a 33-year career at Caterpillar Inc., presented Fosburgh, Caterpillar’s archivist who planned the exhibit on building of the Panama Canal, with photographs as well as a remarkable artifact.

As a field engineer for the company, Rennich, now 81, oversaw the deployment and operation of Caterpillar equipment engaged in widening the canal in the 1960s. Along with photographs of Caterpillar personnel engaged in Panama at that time, he also produced a stoneware beer bottle left behind from the French effort to build the canal between 1881 and 1889.

“We were digging in some of the same places the French had worked years before,” said Rennich of the unearthed treasure.

The French attempt failed in the face of financial difficulties as well as disease. Malaria and yellow fever took the lives of more than 20,000 workers before the endeavor was abandoned.

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