Dr. Robert Cooley was an energetic person. Over his 47-year career as an entomologist (a person who studies insects) in Montana, he taught students, dipped cows, created a world-class collection of ticks, and did basic research on Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF).
Cooley was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and graduated from Massachusetts Agricultural College with a BS degree in 1895. Although he was only 26-years old, he became head of the Department of Zoology and Entomology at Montana State College. In 1903, he helped get legislation passed in Montana to establish the position of State Entomologist for Montana, and he became the first one to hold the position. It was his job to travel the state and study outbreaks of insects injurious to crops or people. He began with a $300 travel budget, which would be a little over $9,000 today. On an assignment to the Bitterroot Valley during July 8–24, 1903, Cooley investigated outbreaks of oyster-shell bark-louse on apple trees and the apple tree borer. He submitted an expense sheet for $21.85.
But his work shifted from insects wreaking agricultural havoc to insects causing human illness, especially RMSF, which is transmitted by tick bites. He thought that humans might be coming into contact with the ticks through their livestock and in the 1910s recommended that livestock such as cattle be “dipped” in disinfectant to control ticks. He conducted an exhaustive study of the life cycle of the Rocky Mountain wood tick, or Dermacentor andersoni, which was a carrier of RMSF. In the process, he collected many species of ticks, creating an unrivalled research collection.
He was in charge of Montana’s RMSF work between 1917–1921, which were years when the U.S. Public Health Service was not involved in this work. When the Public Health Service and the State of Montana began working together again on RMSF, at Montana’s request, at the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse laboratory, Cooley was there as head entomologist. In 1931, he became a Public Health Service employee instead of a Montana state employee, and also retired from his position at Montana State University. In 1936, he received an honorary doctorate from Montana State College, receiving the “Dr.” title that he had earned several times over during his career. He stayed at Rocky Mountain Laboratories until he retired in 1946.
Robert A. Cooley died in 1968 at the age of 95 in Hamilton, Montana, in the Bitterroot Valley which had been one of his first research trips as a young entomologist in 1903. The Cooley Laboratory at Montana State University, dedicated to biomedical research, is named in his honor.
“Robert “Robert Allen Cooley, 1973-1968,” Glen M. Kohls, Journal of Economic Entomology, Volume 62, Issue 4, 1 August 1969, Page 972. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4902307/
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Dr. Robert A. Cooley
Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 1571-1
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*Dr. Robert A. Cooley looked at a vial of ticks while sitting in front of a dissecting microscope. This photo was most likely taken in the 1940s at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories’ Building One.
Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 1580-2
