The United States Entomological Commission was established by an Act of Congress in 1877 as a department under the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories headed by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. The commission was created to find a solution for the Rocky Mountain locust that plagued much of the American West at that time. The original commission was allotted an $18,000 budget with a staff that included three skilled entomologists who were to be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. The Entomological Commission’s first annual report to Congress was published in 1878; their last was printed in 1902.