<\/span> Only one of them was a physician. Dr. Curtis Welch first encountered a suspected childhood diphtheria case in October of 1924, however since no one else in the child’s family was exhibiting symptoms of the highly contagious respiratory disease he dismissed it as a cold. The child died two days later, a tragedy Welch ascribed to malnutrition. On January 20th, however, he officially diagnosed a seven year old Indigenous child with diphtheria after noticing the distinctive smell of the disease. The only antitoxin serum Welch had on hand had expired five years earlier. Realizing that the child was unlikely to recover, he risked administering the expired serum. Welch did not observe any negative reaction to the antitoxin. However, his attempt at treatment was too late, and the child passed away. By this point, Welch was able to conclude that the expired serum, while not harmful, would not be effective enough to fight off an epidemic. He immediately notified the mayor of Nome and they formed an emergency Board of Health to enforce a town-wide quarantine.2<\/a><\/sup> Curtis Welch, \u201cNome\u2019s Solitary Physician Tells Gripping Story of Diphtheria Epidemic,\u201d The Times<\/em> (Trenton, NJ), Feb. 8, 1925. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n
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The Call for Help<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Welch sent a telegram asking for help from the Public Health Service in Washington, D. C. The group was able to quickly locate 300,000 units of antitoxin in Anchorage, but they immediately ran into the issue of transportation. There were two small planes in Anchorage, however they had been disassembled for the winter. Even if they were functional, they would have likely been useless in the below freezing temperatures and 60 to 70 mile per hour winds of the Alaskan winter.3<\/a><\/sup> Stokes, \u201cThe Race for Life,\u201d 272-73.<\/span> Instead, the Board of Health and territorial Governor Scott Bone chose to transport the serum via dog sled along the Alaskan Mail Route, also called the Iditarod Trail.4<\/a><\/sup> Kenneth A Ungermann, The Race to Nome: The Story of the Heroic Alaskan Dog Teams That Rushed Diphtheria Serum to Stricken Nome in 1925<\/em> (Harper & Row, 1963), 18-21, 43.<\/span> This route normally took 20 days for one team to complete, but this would have been far too long for Nome to wait. Instead, they decided on a relay team of mushers and their dog teams. With the help of the United States Signal Corps, which operated the Alaskan telegraph system, the Board of Health contacted 20 men who agreed to transport the antitoxin to Nome.5<\/a><\/sup> Associated Press, “Diphtheria Rages at Nome, Alaska,” Olean Evening Herald<\/em> (Olean, NY), Jan. 28, 1925.<\/span> On January 27th, the serum was delivered by train from Anchorage to Nenana. There, 674 miles away from Nome, the race began.6<\/a><\/sup> Stokes, \u201cThe Race for Life,\u201d 273. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n From the station at Nenana, William “Wild Bill” Shannon and his team took off towards Tolovana. The 52 miles he covered marked the first leg of the serum run. The race involved 20 men and over 150 dogs in total.7<\/a><\/sup> Anna Alger, \u201c100 Years After the Great Serum Run, Balto\u2019s Legacy Endures,\u201d Cleveland Museum of Natural History<\/em>, January 23, 2025, accessed March 18, 2026, https:\/\/www.cmnh.org\/learn\/science-blog\/2025\/01\/23\/100-years-after-the-great-serum-run-baltos-legacy-endures<\/a>.<\/span> These teams travelled in blizzard conditions, and one musher, Charlie Evans, later claimed that he ran through -64 degree weather during his leg of the trip.8<\/a><\/sup> Ungermann, The Race to Nome<\/em>, 80-1.<\/span> There was a great amount of diversity amongst the mushers, with many European immigrants, native born white Americans, members of Indigenous Athabascan tribes, and men of blended ancestry running on the trail. Details about individual mushers and their experiences during the serum run can be found in the map below.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Great Race for Mercy<\/h5>\n\n\n\n