Winter Travels

I have mentioned several times about my thinking that famous places, of course, do not choose to be famous places. We make something happen there, perhaps memorable at the time, but monumental as time passes. In recent years I would add Shanksville, Penn., in that category. For times passed, perhaps, Appomattox Court House, Custer Battlefield, Matewan, W.Va., and Rhea County Courthouse, Dayton, Tenn.

I was recently down to visit the sandhill crane gathering at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge and took a side trip into Dayton. Both of these are about 40 miles north of Chattanooga.

Dayton, county seat for Rhea County, Tenn., was the sight in 1925 of the famous “Scopes Trial” which placed a spot light on the evolution arguments sweeping the nation and the impending duel featuring William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow.

What I like about the Scopes Trial museum, in the basement of the courthouse, is its evenhandedness of the combatants and the circus that swept through the town as if the town was not even there. We have, of course, numerous press releases from 1925 kept in archives around the country. Most noted are pieces by  H.L. Mencken who was not nice to either Jennings Bryan or Dayton.

But, like many historic places in the US, a person needs to go there and see if the walls speak. If you are lucky, at the Rhea County courthouse you can visit the second-floor courtroom that was the combat zone.
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