Welcome To Dayton Tennessee, Home of Bryan College
N 35° 26.841 W 085° 03.832
16S E 675719 N 3924376
Welcome to Dayton Tennessee, Southern end of town.
Waymark Code: WM23X5
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 08/30/2007
Views: 26
The community of Dayton was originally settled around 1820 as Smith's Crossroads and was renamed Dayton after Ohio city in 1877. Early industry included manufacture of pig iron. The town was incorporated in 1895.
Scopes trial
In 1925 the famous Scopes Monkey Trial was held in Dayton (some believe the trial was arranged by the town's leaders as a publicity stunt), and for a period of time, filled the town with hucksters of every description and journalists from around the world. The trial participants included William Jennings Bryan in the role of prosecutor and Clarence Darrow as John T. Scopes' defense counsel. Although this trial is often represented as being pivotal in the movement to allow evolution to be taught in US schools, it actually marked the beginning of a major decline in the teaching of evolution which didn't start to recover until the early 1960s. (Likewise the Butler Act, which Scopes was supposed to have violated, though it was never invoked again, remained on the statute books until the late 1960s.)
Dayton is also home to Bryan College, a four-year Christian liberal arts school named in honor of William Jennings Bryan, who died in Dayton five days after the Scopes Trial ended.