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.
Div
class
grid-col-6
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
Div
class
usa-grid
Div
class
grid-col-6
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.
See the whole supplement [link to pages].
Div
class
usagrid-widthcol-two-thirds6
Div
class
usa-width-two-thirds
Dr. Frank J. O'Donnell wrote his name and the date "Dec. 20, 1924" on one of the pages of the Bitter Root Valley Illustrated supplement. He was a field agent for the Montana State Board of Entomology and did control work for the prevention of Rocky Mountain spotted fever 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 notable things happened in his life that year: He helped begin production of Rocky Mountain spotted fever 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.
Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 18.10.1
