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The following history has been compiled and written by the authors. The historical facts are available from the Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases (CRWAD) archives, dating back to letters and summaries written by the founders, and by a few of the Secretary-Treasurers from the early decades through 2014. The Organization and Purpose: The CRWAD is a non-profit organization and has been since its origin. The sole purpose of CRWAD is to discuss and disseminate the most current research advances in animal diseases. Graduate students and industry and academic professionals present and discuss the most recent advances on subjects of interest to the CRWAD and of importance to the global livestock and companion animal industries. The oral and poster abstracts of new and unpublished data presented at the meeting sessions are published each year in the CRWAD Proceedings (formerly the CRWAD Abstracts). CRWAD publishes, copyrights, and distributes the Proceedings. At the organizational meeting, a Chairman and Secretary were appointed. There was at least one precursor to the new organization, and that was an Association of Experiment Station Veterinarians which was organized in conjunction with the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) which graciously set aside a number of pages of its Proceedings for use by the newly formed body. There is very little more that was Early historyThe early history of the Conference has been well described by both Dr L. Van Es's "A Historical Sketch," November, A bit of reminiscence is 'sutured-in' at this point since it was explained to me that Dr. Craig probably got his idea following a dinner in Chicago that was arranged by Dr. L. Van Es of the University of Nebraska. Van Es had taken it upon himself to invite a group of his colleagues to a dinner where, with good wine and cigars, they could carry on what he was want to call 'more or less scientific shop talk'. He was firm in the belief that much good could come from a 'bull session' where scientists could sit down together and 'pull out the stops'.Two of these so-called 'Van Es Dinners' were held, one in 1918 and one a year later.