Canyon Creek Schoolhouse Laboratory 100^th Anniversary

Early residents of the Bitterroot Valley called the disease “black measles”, “blue disease”, “black typhus”, or just “fever.” This disease RMSF 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 virology and only basic technology.

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. (20 MB)

Encased in this key chain and pendant are Dermacentor andersoni ticks, the first tick species identified as transmitting Rocky Mountain spotted fever. This RMSF. Making jewelry might strike us as an odd thing to do with ticks, but these trinkets symbolize the victory over RMSF that the researchers at the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse laboratory enabled with their tireless and extremely dangerous work developing a vaccine. The pendants also reference other diseases carried by insects that the scientists of the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse would go on to research, including typhus, tularemia, mosquito-borne encephalitis, and plague as well as Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

This keychain and pendant belonged to Dr. Ralph R. Parker, who played a major role in Rocky Mountain spotted fever research, and who was director of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, from 1927 to 1949. 

We’ve come a long way in the 100 years since the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse became a laboratory to study Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Today the Rocky Mountain Laboratories inhabit an entire campus where scientists conduct basic research on Lyme disease, prion diseases, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Ebola, and coronavirus diseases like SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. We’ve come a long way in the 100 years since the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse became a laboratory to study Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Visit more of this online history to learn about the people and their work at the schoolhouse laboratory.

The Rocky Mountain Laboratories campus is snuggled in the valley below Downy Mountain in 2017.