Historical Markers Tell Story of CVM's Past and Present

Anyone on a quest to understand the long and storied history of the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine and its strong ties to the concept of One Health can begin by seeking out the smallest of clues in the historical markers found on the university and CVM campuses.

A brief scavenger hunt will reveal all three — one outlining the history of Cary Hall and the legacy of Dr. Charles Allen Cary, father of the CVM at Auburn; one on the old Wire Road main campus site of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Regional Laboratory for Animal Disease Research (now home to the Auburn University School of Kinesiology), which carried on much of the One Health research pioneered by Cary and his students in the years prior; and the last summarizing a short history of the CVM itself, including its major buildings and facilities.

Named Auburn’s first veterinary professor in 1892, Cary was one of the earliest pioneers of One Health, conducting veterinary clinics for local farmers and lobbying the city of Montgomery to begin meat and dairy testing. As a result, the city later became the first in the nation to implement food supply safety initiatives through food inspections.

Cary’s Tuberculosis Eradication Program among Alabama dairy herds also proved effective. Alabama became one of the first states in the nation to implement the use of Tuberculin to detect TB in cattle, enforce public meat and milk inspection and incorporate the pasteurization process.

That work laid the foundation for the Regional Laboratory for Animal Disease Research, established at Auburn (then-Alabama Polytechnic Institute, or API) in response to the federal Bankhead-Jones Act of 1935, calling on the USDA to establish regional research labs across the country to investigate agricultural problems associated with each region.

In 1938, the department hired Dr. B.T. Simms, a 1911 API veterinary graduate and protégé of Cary, to lead the laboratory. He originally supervised a staff of 11 veterinarians and parasitologists whose studies focused on diseases affecting cattle, including parasitic bovine coccidiosis and Johne’s disease. The laboratory closed in 1971 when a modern USDA facility was opened near the current location of the CVM, one mile west on Wire Road. The older facility continued to be used for biological research until the complex was razed in 2007.

Finally, the last marker, located in front of the College of Veterinary Medicine’s modern Wire Road campus, features a brief outline of the history of the oldest college of veterinary medicine in the South and seventh-oldest in the nation, including a construction summary of its current facilities and an account of its long participation in the Southern Regional Education Board agreement as the veterinary training facility for eight states — the same agreement by which Kentucky students attend Auburn today.