Lawrence Experiment Station facts for kids
The Lawrence Experiment Station was a very important place. It was the world's first special center for testing how to make drinking water clean and how to treat wastewater. This station, now called the Senator William X. Wall Experiment Station, was started in 1887 in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
A new, bigger building for the station opened in 1954. Later, in 1975, it was recognized as a historic landmark because of its importance in engineering. In 1993, the station was renamed to honor Senator William X. Wall. He was a state senator who worked hard to get the new building built in the 1950s.
How the Station Started
The Lawrence Experiment Station was created by the Massachusetts State Board of Health. This happened because scientists like William Thompson Sedgwick and Theobald Smith discovered that dirty water could spread diseases. They understood that tiny germs in water caused sickness.
In 1886, the government in Massachusetts decided that there needed to be rules about water pollution. This led to the creation of the station. It was led by Hiram Francis Mills, who is sometimes called the "Father of American Sanitary Engineering." Other important people from MIT also helped. These included professors William Ripley Nichols, Ellen Swallow Richards, and Thomas Messinger Drown. Early research on cleaning sewage and filtering drinking water was done by Allen Hazen and George W. Fuller.
Early Research and Discoveries
At first, the station's main goal was to find good ways to clean wastewater. They wanted to see if filtering water worked better than natural processes. They did many experiments in their chemistry lab to figure this out.
During this time, Sedgwick and his students created new ways to find and count the tiny living things (microorganisms) in water and sewage. Their studies were very important. They helped set new rules for clean water in Massachusetts, other states, and even other countries.
Fighting Disease
Two years after the station opened, a special lab for studying bacteria was added. This was very helpful when a serious sickness called typhoid fever spread in 1893. This happened along the Merrimack River.
To fight the disease, the city of Lawrence started filtering its river water. They used special filters designed by Hiram Mills. This made Lawrence the first city in America to filter its water to stop diseases. After they started filtering the water, the number of typhoid fever cases dropped a lot. The overall death rate in the city also went down.
The Station Today
Today, the Lawrence Experiment Station is part of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). It is a key part of their environmental laboratory. The station provides important scientific and lab support for all of the DEP's programs.
In 2011, the station got a big, new addition. This new part of the building is designed to be very energy efficient. It also holds the state's lab for workplace safety.
