The Canyon Creek Schoolhouse was located in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, an up-and-coming agricultural and business area in the early 1900s. In May 1910, the Western News printed a 27-page supplement called the “Bitter Root Valley Illustrated” describing the valley’s businesses, orchards and farmland, industry, and civic and religious life. What the supplement didn’t mention was that a highly fatal disease killed some residents every spring—and there was no prevention or treatment for it. The disease was Rocky Mountain spotted fever .

(RMSF).

Why did

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Dr. Frank J. O'Donnell wrote write his name and the date "Dec. 20, 1924" on one of the pages of the Bitter Root Valley Illustrated supplement. He was the 1910 supplement? As a field agent for the Montana State Board of Entomology and , O'Donnell did control work for the prevention of Rocky Mountain spotted fever RMSF and other tick-borne diseases endemic to the valley. We don’t know why he signed his name 14 years after the supplement had been published, but two Two notable things had happened in his life that year: He went from being a Montana state employee to a U.S. Public Health Service staff member, and he helped begin production of Rocky Mountain spotted fever RMSF vaccine, enabling the promise of the Bitter Root Valley supplement to come true; and he went from being a Montana state employee to a U.S. Public Health Service staff member. .

(Note that “Bitterroot” is today’s preferred spelling.)