Site of Robinson’s Drugstore and the Hotel Aqua

Robinson’s Drug Store and the Hotel Aqua once occupied the lot on the south side of Main Street, just west of Market Street. It was within the walls of Robinson’s Drug Store, on May 4-5, 1925, that a group of Dayton’s businessmen orchestrated the plan that would become the Scopes Trial. Gathered around a small, round table—similar to the one now displayed in the Rhea Heritage & Scopes Trial Museum—they seized upon an opportunity presented in a May 4 newspaper article announcing the ACLU’s willingness to support a teacher in challenging Tennessee’s new antievolution law. When the school’s regular biology teacher and principal, William F. Ferguson, declined to participate, the conspirators recruited John T. Scopes to stand in as the defendant. Ironically, F.E. Robinson, the drugstore’s owner, held the concession for selling school textbooks, and his store also functioned as a bookstore where students purchased A Civic Biology, Presented in Problems by George William Hunter—the very textbook Scopes was accused of using to teach evolution. On July 15, the fourth day of the trial, Robinson testified that Scopes had admitted to covering the evolutionary tree on page 194 of Hunter’s book.

Today, the vacant lot adjacent to EdFinancial marks the site where the drugstore once stood. Adjacent to Robinson’s Drug Store was the three-story, 35-room Hotel Aqua, which played a pivotal role in the Scopes Trial spectacle.

Before the trial commenced, the hotel hosted lavish banquets welcoming both William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow to town. At his banquet on the evening of July 7, Bryan famously declared the trial a “duel to the death” between Christianity and infidelity. Sensing an opportunity, hotel proprietor William Rufus “Rufe” Nighbert expanded capacity by adding rented cots from Morgan Furniture Company and raising the hotel’s rates from $2.75 to $8.00 per person per night. By the end of the trial, Hotel Aqua had served 6,000 meals, earning $3,500 in profits. Access to its popular dining hall required a ticket and was strictly controlled at the front door by Nighbert’s niece, Evelyn Parnell (Bullington), a junior at Rhea Central High School. However, special accommodations were made for Scopes and his friends, as Scopes was the faculty sponsor of her high school class.

Looking east on Main Street in 1925. Hotel Aqua is the three-story building, and the adjacent business is Robinson’s Drug Store.

Robinson’s Drug Store can be seen on the right in 1925.

Robinson’s Drug Store with a crowd outside waiting to hear the most recent news of the Scopes Trial.

Interior view of Robinson’s Drug Store during the Scopes Trial, 1925. The small round table where the trial was concocted by local businessmen can be seen in the middle of the room.

A crowd gathers outside of the Hotel Aqua to hear the news of the trial, 1925.

The crowd gathers to read the reports concerning the Scopes Trial in the newspapers. Defense attorney, John R. Neal, can be seen in the black suit, and standing next to his left is John T. Scopes, 1925.