Western Colorado College professor, Dr. John Johnson, first visited the abandoned mining town of Gothic, Colorado on July 14, 1919.  Recognizing the rich divrsity of the local ecosystems, he began bringing students to study amid Gothic's ruins.  Since 1928, when RMBL was officially founded, thousands of students and scientists have followed in Dr. Johnson's footsteps, making the ecosystems around Gothic some of the most intensively studied in the world and making RMBL an internationally renowned center for scientific research and education.