Cas Walker comes to town; Sign of the shears put up in 1924

Knoxville

Show Caption Hide Caption Knoxville's legendary Cas Walker's message to 'thugs' Knoxville's legendary Cas Walker shares his message to 'thugs' at his grocery stores. (Historical Video)

Editor's Note: This story was originally published on March 25, 2012.

The third strike made the charm.

Caswell Orton Walker looked up and down the picket line outside the Kentucky coal mine, counted the pennies in his pocket and set out for Knoxville.

"I had been out on strike two times before, and I decided I wasn't going through no more," he recalled. "Not two people knew me when I first came to Knoxville."

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Pennies in his pocket, he came to Knoxville and made millions

His name would become one of Knoxville's most recognized -- and sometimes most reviled -- of the century. He'd make millions, blaze a trail across the airwaves, dominate city politics for decades and build a business empire across three states.

But first, Cas Walker had a grocery store to open.

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He was 21 years old when he arrived in Knoxville in 1924, fresh from a cross-country career as sheepherder, logger, farmhand, miner and bootlegger. Walker had learned the grocery trade from his father, who ran a general store on English Mountain in neighboring Sevier County.

He'd laugh later about how he planned it all out, sketching store designs in his head while he sweated in the mines and setting them down with borrowed pencil and paper. He spent three years saving up in the Harlan coal camps before the strike sent him packing -- and spent nearly three weeks just getting to Knoxville.

"They shot people they saw walking down the (railroad) tracks to the station," he recalled years later. "(Strikers) thought they were going to work."

Walker paid $750 in cash for his first store on Vine Avenue on the edge of downtown and near the heart of the Bowery district. He opened each day at 5 a.m. after pulling a cart to Market Square and back for the day's produce. The doors didn't close until 9 p.m.

Walker rang out the register after his first week of business with $27. He didn't own a horse or a mule -- not even a necktie.

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"Most of the customers at my first store wore overalls, and I wore them," he explained. "I've always played the poor boy."

The store scraped along until Walker hit on the gimmick that defined his business style. One Saturday he started throwing live fryer chickens off the roof ? catch it, and it's yours.

Knoxville's legendary Cas Walker's 1946 WNOX broadcast Knoxville's legendary Cas Walker on the radio

Chicken-tossing was a regular Saturday event

The crowd nearly tore the store down chasing chickens, and Walker counted $1,200 in sales at the end of the day. Chicken-tossing became a regular Saturday event, sometimes drawing crowds of up to 3,000 customers.

Walker followed up with greased-pig contests, free flea dips, dancers hired off the street and other promotions that ranged from the crafty to the ridiculous.

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"Someone said I was crazy," Walker said later. "Maybe I was, but they wasn't giving away no frying chickens."

By decade's end the coon-hunting grocer had bought a horse and a wagon, opened a second store and begun hosting an hourlong variety show on the city's second radio station. He set up his trademark sign of the shears and settled into the habit of talking about himself in the third person ? not "I," not "me," but always "Cas Walker" ? to make his name unforgettable.

Cas Walker discovered Dolly Parton and the Everly Brothers

His greatest fame wouldn't come for another 15 years, not until he launched a political career based on cutthroat business tactics and tirades against the "silk-stocking crowd" that looked down on him and his customers. He'd start his own newspaper, sponsor a live television show and discover such acts as Dolly Parton and the Everly Brothers.

But for now, there were groceries to sell.

"People said they wouldn't stoop to some of my promotions," he chuckled near the close of his career, "but brother, if I'd thought of a few more things, I'd have stooped a little lower."