by  Todd Waters, aka “The Chiro-Picker” – SpinalColumnRadio featured blogger

As I wrote in a recent Fresh Pick installment, I enjoy collecting stories and treasured memories from people who have a connection with Chiropractic’s early years — tales, which I often find escape our chiro-history texts. While these stories can sometimes be difficult, if not impossible, to fact-check, I still find that they allow me to be a better ChiroPicker.  For they often provide missing clues — acting as that needed breadcrumb — to bring me (and I’m sure other chiro-historians) closer to unearthing other great discoveries.

Here’s another one of my favorites:

Dr. Gary Street joined up with the now late Dr. Merwyn Zarbuck to assist him in his twenty-five year quest for BJ Palmer’s scrapbook.

BJ, as you may know, wrote about his scrapbook in the Green Book series and stated it was not actually a book per se, but files upon files of anything and everything documenting chiropractic’s history from its conception.

The scrapbook contained notebooks, journals, newspaper clippings, publications, and letters.

And while BJ wrote about this compilation, he did not state where it was kept — which would have been a big deal, because the files were rumored to have occupied three floors! 

Surely, a collection this large would be easy to find after a cursory search about the campus.  But then again, the references to BJ as “The Little Builder” were not made in vain. He was constantly constructing additions at the Palmer School — acquiring neighboring properties for expansion to allow him to interconnect his buildings. Perhaps during these structural revisions the three-floor-scrapbook got “misplaced.” Continue reading →