In April of 1859, one hundred and fifty laborers gathered on Egypt's northern shore. When pickaxes first hit the land to be parted from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, not only was the Suez Canal initiated, but the coastal city of Port Said was born as well. Two more cities, Ismailia (1862) and Terreplein/Port Tewfik (1867), were later founded along the waterway. As water and greenery advanced, the desert supposedly receded. As cities surged from the sand, civilization conquered uncivilized wastelands. Tens of thousands laborers migrated to the Isthmus in search of work and found employment in a number of different professional fields. This paper analyzes the ways in which the environment of the isthmus of Suez changed upon the digging of the canal as well as the ideas that germinated about such changes. It approaches the isthmus of Suez as not "just a place," but also as an arena in which conflicting ideologies about space came at odds with each other. At first, I examine the earliest schemes about the realization of a water-way cutting through from the Mediterranean to the Red sea. Then, I proceed to analyze the difficult gestation of the city of Port Said. Afterwards, I adopt comparative perspectives to present the parallel development of Port Said and Ismailia. I identify the similarities and the ruptures of their shared history. Finally, I incorporate the perspectives of migrant laborers themselves to describe their lives in the quickly evolving desert. By relying on published memoirs, travel accounts, and archival documents gathered in my multi-sited fieldwork, I explore how Western contemporaries viewed the isthmus desert and constructed narratives around the urbanization and the peopling of the area. I argue that they sanctioned the myth that Western initiative alone could transform the isthmus sands into flower gardens, thus disregarding realities on the ground: labor movements and environmental challenges.