By the early 20th century, botanist Leonard Cockayne felt the need for a high-country research station and approached Charles Chilton, Professor of Biology at Canterbury College, and Geology lecturer Robert Speight.

The original site selected in 1908 was Broken River, the terminus of the railway line from Christchurch, after which passengers switched to coaches to cross Arthur's Pass and reach the West Coast.

By 1910 the railroad had extended to the railway camp of Cass, so the Canterbury College Board selected 10 acres of land there adjacent to Lake Sarah as the site for a research station.

The facility and surrounding areas were officially opened on 29 July 1914 as the Canterbury College Mountain Biological Station, and Chilton led the first field trip there with six students in November.

He argued for the need for a completely fenced-off botanical reserve and setting up a station to observe the effects of tussock burning, a common farming practice.

Entomologist Robert Tillyard visited Cass in 1920 to collect insects and described a new species of bush dragonfly Uropetala chiltoni from the area, named after Chilton.

By the 1930s Foweraker was leading longer and more extensive botanical collecting expeditions to Mount Horrible and the Cass and Hawdon riverbeds, and Edward Percival was running 10-day advanced zoology field courses, which continued until 1945.

A track was built across the Sugarloaf Saddle in 2012 thanks to the help of the University Tramping Club and BioSoc, and a high elevation weather station, Sugarbaby, was installed on top of Mount Sugar Loaf the following year.

She also painted the watercolour Mountain Biological Field Station, Cass, which depicts the original building with its laboratory extension and a steam train passing in the background.

[1] In 1958 Philipson and Garth Brownlie published The Flora of Cass, which included articles on history, geology, soils, climate and vegetation over time.