Rocky Mountain Laboratories: Canyon Creek Schoolhouse Laboratory 100th Anniversary
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A small group of state and federal scientists set up a laboratory in a rented schoolhouse in Montana 100 years ago this month—September 2021. They worked there only seven years, but what they did made history: created a vaccine for a highly fatal disease; added to our knowledge of diseases carried by ticks; and established the forerunner of what would become today’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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The brick schoolhouse in Canyon Creek, Montana, on a snowy day after it had become an official field station of the U.S. Public Health Service, circa 1921.
Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 1006
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Early residents of the Bitterroot Valley called the disease “black measles”, “blue disease”, “black typhus”, or just “fever.” This disease appeared in the valley after the slope had been cleared of trees for timber to make railway ties for the Northern Pacific Railroad, leaving the perfect environment for ticks. In 1902, the state of Montana asked scientists to investigate the mysterious disease. In less than 22 years, researchers identified what caused the disease, how it was transmitted to humans, and created a life-saving vaccine. This was nearly a miracle in an age with little knowledge of bacteriology and only basic technology.
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This drawing shows the spotted fever rash on a leg. It was drawn in 1903 by Dr. John F. Anderson when he became one of the first scientists to investigate Rocky Mountain spotted fever in Montana. Anderson was a U.S. Public Health Service officer assigned to the Hygienic Laboratory, which later became the National Institutes of Health.
Read his report [link].
Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 1533-1
