Clarence Darrow Octagon House
Posted by: 
Rattlebars
N 41° 26.993 W 080° 35.062
17T E 534716 N 4588783
Boyhood Home of Clarence Darrow.
Waymark Code: WM1A6K
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 03/11/2007
Views: 151
The famed Clarence Darrow (
visit link) is memorialized here. One of the most prominent trial lawyers of the 20th century, Clarence Darrow was born in nearby Farmdale in 1857 and lived here from 1864 to about 1873. He was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1878. After practicing in Ashtabula County for several years, he moved to Chicago in 1887 and first established a national reputation by defending labor leader Eugene Debs in a case stemming from the Pullman Strike of 1894. Darrow consistently championed the powerless and was steadfastly opposed to the death penalty. His most prominent cases, coming late in his career, were Illinois v. Leopold and Loeb, a sensational 1924 capital murder trial; and Tennesee v. Scopes, the famous 1925 "monkey trial" that first tested the legality of teaching Theory of evolution in public schools. This trail was fictionalized in the play and movie "Inherit the Wind" with Spencer Tracy as "Darrow" (Drummond) (
visit link).. Darrow died in Chicago in 1938.