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.
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Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 1006
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In September 1921, state and federal scientists rented a schoolhouse in Montana to set up a laboratory. 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 the Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This webpage celebrates the 100th anniversary of Canyon Creek Schoolhouse Laboratory.
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Early residents of the Bitterroot Valley called the disease “black measles”measles,” “blue disease”disease,” “black typhus”typhus,” or just “fever.” 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 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 microbiology and only basic technology.
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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.
Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 1533-1
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Encased in this key chain and pendant these pendants are Dermacentor andersoni ticks, the first tick species identified as transmitting 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 would go on to research, including typhus, tularemia, mosquito-borne encephalitis, and plague.
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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.
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Object: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 98.2.1-2
