Lawrence Experiment Station

[3] Lawrence Station was established by the Massachusetts State Board of Health, based on the earlier work of scientists William Thompson Sedgwick and Theobald Smith who understood the linkage of water-borne germs to specific diseases.

In 1886 the Massachusetts legislature required its Board of Health to adopt water pollution standards, which led to creation of the station under the direction of Hiram Francis Mills, the "Father of American Sanitary Engineering".

MIT professors William Ripley Nichols, Ellen Swallow Richards, and Thomas Messinger Drown also played important early roles.

Allen Hazen and George W. Fuller were in charge of some of the earliest research on sewage treatment and drinking water filtration.

During this time, Sedgwick and students invented techniques for identifying and quantitatively analyzing the microorganisms in water and sewage.