What state is the farm in???

I e-mailed Gary Goldman about this but he said there was no answer. It's either in WV, VA, PA, or MD. The National Institute of Mental Health is Bethesda, MD: a suburb of DC. I guess it wasn't a suburb yet when the story took place back in 1966.

I e-mailed Gary Goldman about this but he said there was no answer. It's either in WV, VA, PA, or MD. The National Institute of Mental Health is Bethesda, MD: a suburb of DC. I guess it wasn't a suburb yet when the story took place back in 1966.

I'd take him at his word. The actual location isn't really important to the story, and it's easier to leave it vague than to say "here it is," and then listen to nitpickers say that it's not lireallyli like that.

So yes, somewhere in the foothills of the Appalachians not too distant from Maryland seems likely, but I doubt we'll get anything better than that.

There may have been a town mentioned in one of the books, but I don't recall the name of it off the top of my head.

If you could find the name of the town that would be great. I used to go to college right by that area, in the Maryland foothills of the Appalachians.

I was wonderin the same thing myself.

Back when I got hook on to the NIMH crase I find NIMH's site and email address. I actally dared a friend of mine to email NIMH asking about the rats and got this, they replaied. The guy who mailed back was nice and he said that the story about the rats could be based on a true event. Back in the 50's a NIMH scientise did do experiments on a group of rats.. What happened, no one knows.

Does anyone know what the town is said in one of the books?

Does anyone know what the town is said in one of the books?

I didn't find it in my brief glance through it. Perhaps you could try reading the books yourself? Let us know what you find out.

Does anyone know what the town is said in one of the books?

I didn't find it in my brief glance through it. Perhaps you could try reading the books yourself? Let us know what you find out.

Hell, I dont have time for that. Besides people can't know I like this movie.

Does anyone know what the town is said in one of the books?

I didn't find it in my brief glance through it. Perhaps you could try reading the books yourself? Let us know what you find out.

Hell, I dont have time for that. Besides people can't know I like this movie.

Give it a try, the book is not very long and we would never tell on you.

If I recalled right, if you go to NIMH Muck and look at their location directiory it mentions a town beside the farm. But of course it's been long time simce I been banned..

You know what's really weird, and there's this totally messed up crossover that I could do but it would collapse the universe.

The real NIMH is located in Bethesda, Maryland. You can walk through/fight stuff in the Bethesda Ruins in Fallout 3, which is supposed to be a rough analog of the real city. So what if the FO3 continuity also followed the NIMH one, and the labs survived the nuclear apocalypse...etc.

But I can't mix those two continuities, good lord I'd probably open a giant black hole in the Andromeda galaxy and swallow some poor alien family. And I don't want to do that.

Well, I believe the farm may be located in or around Poolesville, MD. Read this article from "Science News" called "The (Real) Secret of NIMH" The article was published on August 7th, 1982 by Wray Herbert, just before "The Secret of NIMH" debuted in theaters that summer. It covers a Psychologist by the name of John B. Calhoun, and his research on the behavior of rats. The NIMH lab was in Poolesville. The article also covers the many similarities between Calhoun's lab with the lab depicted in the book. Along with even certain similarities to individual rats in the study and those in the book! Here is the URL for the article, You must scroll about half way down and find the "Science News August 7, 1982: The (Real) Secret of NIMH" link and click on it. Email me if you have any other questions!

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.vanden-eykel.com/nimharchive/articles/sfc482.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.vanden-eykel.com/nimharchive/archive.html&usg=__y0umIhNpES5FT9DxZLMtiILxnYQ=&h=813&w=663&sz=104&hl=en&start=146&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=DunIZC1P4vkIOM:&tbnh=144&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbrisby%26start%3D140%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1C1GGGE_enUS362US362%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1

Interesting find. Here's a textual version of the article:
http://www.vanden-eykel.com/nimharchive/articles/sn782.htm

You can also look up Mr. Calhoun on Wikipedia for additional information regarding his work. Personally, I find it fascinating...

1966? Where did you get that year? No offense, but I've never heard of that.

I always figured the NIMH facility to be in rural Virginia, with the Fitzgibbons farm and Thorn Valley at the Appalachian foothills. This in spite of none of the family having Southern accents. I just figured they were transplanted Northerners.

I always figured the NIMH facility to be in rural Virginia, with the Fitzgibbons farm and Thorn Valley at the Appalachian foothills. This in spite of none of the family having Southern accents. I just figured they were transplanted Northerners.

NIMH itself (being a real place) is right here[=http://maps.google.com/maps?q=national+institute+mental+health&ie=UTF8&hq=national+institute+mental+health&hnear=&radius=15000&ll=39.057051,-77.108746&spn=0.070382,0.143852&t=h&z=13&iwloc=A]here. As far as the Fitzgibbons not having accents... well, the book didn't say anything about accents, per se, though the movies had fairly generic northern accents. Although, I would say the farmer had a slight twang/drawl. Still, it's a movie and I don't think they had much of a specific place in mind when they were casting.

1966? Where did you get that year? No offense, but I've never heard of that.

It is mentioned in the novel, sort of in the book there is a scene where the Shrew mentions a snow storm that happened in 1964, Mrs.Brisby(or in this case, Mrs.Frisby) responds saying that it was the worst storm in two years,or something like that, but it did give some hint of the year the story was set in.

Thorn Valley would have to be somewhere in the Appalachians, as mentioned numerous times, and the farm shouldn't be more than 50 miles away from it. So I'm going to guess somewhere in Garrett County, Maryland. Looking at the Wikipedia page, it seems very plausible.

Edit: Thorn Valley may very likely be based on the Glades. This would make a hell of a lot of sense because there's farmland near the area and it resembles Thorn Valley very well.

You can read more about it here: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/maryland_dc/placesweprotect/the-glades.xml

wikipedia article on Garrett County: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_County,_Maryland

Edit 2: Then again humans constantly go through the area, so probably not. However, when the novel was written, there would've very likely been more strict guidelines on who enters the area and who doesn't.