The Evolution Arena at Dayton
July 1925’s Scopes Monkey Trial, about whether evolution could be taught in Tennessee public schools, brought massive attention upon the small town of Dayton, Tennessee: population 1,800.
New York Times Magazine spent a few days in town to profile the community.
The journalist Charles McD. [McDonald] Puckette wrote:
Dayton is living in the fierce light which the sportive gods of news occasionally focus upon such geographically and politically obscure communities.
Indeed. Such recent small towns which have attracted tremendous attention in recent decades include Ferguson, Missouri (population 18K) in 2014; Wasilla, Alaska (population 10K) in 2008; and Newtown, Connecticut (population 27K) in 2012.
What of Dayton itself – the mountain arena of the evolution struggle? It is a town of 1,800 souls at the foot of Waldens Ridge, thirty-eight miles north of Chattanooga.
While still a small town overall, the town’s 2020 Census population had more than quadrupled to 7,796.
Where did Dayton stand on the trial itself? On Tennessee’s side, and against the high school science teacher John T. Scopes.
To Daytonians the issue is: “Have the people a right to declare what shall be taught their children in schools which the people’s money built and support?” Ninety-five percent of Dayton’s citizens answer that question in the affirmative and are seriously determined to go through with it.
While nobody is polling Dayton residents about their stance on evolution now, that 1925 question was a (likely?) precursor of 2024 presidential vote preference, and Dayton voted about 80% for Donald Trump.
How were Dayton residents dealing with the trial’s attention in 1925? By soaking it up.
Dayton’s local notoriety is of immense proportions. It is referred to as “Monkey Town” throughout East Tennessee. Merchant advertisers play upon its sudden and special fame. The city meat market announces: “We handle all kinds of meat except monkey.” A firm of druggists advises: “Don’t monkey around when you come to Dayton but call on us.”
Scopes was found guilty and fined a token $100, but the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the verdict on a technicality. (The lower-court judge had set the $100 fine, but the jury was supposed to instead.)
Tennessee’s state legislature later repealed the Butler Act, which banned the teaching of evolution in state public schools, in 1967.
The Evolution Arena at Dayton: Circus Sideshows and Curious Visitors Descend Upon Tennessee Mountain Town, but Legal Struggle Will Involve Christian Faith, Science, Free Speech, and the Constitution
Published: Sunday, July 5, 1925