Panama Star final edition today

The Panama Star, the country’s oldest newspaper, will cease publication today.

The newspaper was first produced in February 1849 by three men who had arrived in Panama City en route to the California Gold Rush. After walking across the Isthmus, they were awaiting a ship to San Francisco and launched a newspaper to pass the time.

In a few months they had left to seek their fortunes, but the paper continued under new ownership. It survived an official attempt to close it by running under a different title for a short time.

It introduced a Spanish supplement, La Estrella, in 1853 and, during the early days of the French attempt at building the canal, became the continent’s first tri-lingual paper with the introduction of a French section.

The paper later merged with an English rival to become The Star and Herald, which became the country’s leading publication. It closed before the 1989 American invasion, but La Estrella continued. The Star was re-introduced as the English supplement to Estrella in September 2007. This is the last edition.