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Canyon Creek Schoolhouse Laboratory 100th Anniversary

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The Canyon Creek Schoolhouse opened to students in 1894. At that time, the schoolhouse was about a mile from the town of Hamilton.



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A colorized photo of the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse Laboratory with a dirt road leading past itImage Modified

You might think of a schoolhouse of this time as being a one-room wooden building, but the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse was a two-story building constructed from locally-made bricks.

Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 01465

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A man rides a horse over a bridge with a town in the background. Taken from some height.Image Modified

The schoolhouse was located on the west side of the Bitterroot River near a bridge that connected the town of Canyon Creek to the town of Hamilton, Montana.

Image: Courtesy of Dr. Marshall Bloom

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The schoolhouse was not empty for long. In August 1921, it was announced that the laboratory investigating Rocky Mountain spotted fever would lease the building from the school district. The laboratory would move from its log cabin in Victor, Montana, to the schoolhouse in September 1921.

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Image RemovedThe front of Canyon Creek Schoolhouse Laboratory, a brick two-story building, on an autumn dayImage Added

The schoolhouse turned laboratory, circa 1921. Notice the U.S. Public Health Service Laboratory sign. This photo was taken before a fence and animal cages were built.

Image: Montana Memories, 196

classThe laboratory was located in the schoolhouse for only seven years, when a new building constructed especially for research and vaccine production was opened. After the laboratory moved, the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse wasn’t used until Dr. William Jellison bought the building in 1966 and created a museum in it. Jellison began working at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories before he had even graduated college and eventually became a Public Health Service officer. After his death, the museum’s collections were transferred to the Montana Historical Society in Hamilton. The building sat empty again.


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Dr. William Jellison’s museum exhibits featured science, Native American artifacts, natural science, local artists, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Here he [depends on what’s in photo]Jellison was an entomologist at Rocky Mountain Laboratories who saved a good deal of its history.

Read his oral history: https://history.nih.gov/display/history/Jellison%2C+William+L.+undated+A

Image: NEED FROM RMLRocky Mountain Laboratories, 2715

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It wasn’t until August 1995 that the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse began its fourth life—this time as a playhouse for the theater group called The Hamilton Players, who had bought the building from the Jellison family. But the passage of time had done its damage, and the upper floor and attic had to be taken down. Volunteers helped to renovate the building, including a detachment of U.S. Navy SeaBees (the Navy’s construction battalions).

Now you can see a show where children once learned, scientists once produced a life-saving vaccine, and a museum once educated visitors. [link to Hamilton Players].

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The former schoolhouse became a one-story building. While the upper floors had to be taken down, the Hamilton Players eventually added a lobby, office, Green Room, and back stage.

Image: Courtesy of photographer Jon Rounhaus
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