If you grew up in East Tennessee, Virginia, or Kentucky in the 1940s thru the 1980s, there is one man you likely remember. He was a very successful businessman, a politician, and an entertainer. Orton Caswell (better known as Cas) Walker was an extraordinary personality in all of those areas. Part business owner, carnival barker, showman, and politician, he was outspoken and lively.
Cas was born in Sevier County, Tennessee, in 1902. He had little formal schooling, and his upbringing was poor. He left Sevierville at fourteen to work in North Carolina in a paper mill and later worked in the coal mines of Kentucky. He managed to save $850.00 that he invested in a Knoxville grocery when he returned home in 1924. He called it the Cas Walker Cash Store. Grocery stores were changing at that time, and he was an innovative businessman. Cas Walker greatly affected the way groceries were sold in the area. His stores had a grocery store feel with a rural atmosphere and catered to the working class of the area. He parlayed that first store into a chain, eventually becoming one of the area’s first self-made millionaires operating several dozen grocery stores in the region.
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Cas used many methods to market his stores. He threw coupons from airplanes and chickens from rooftops and even had a man buried alive for several days at one of his stores. His use of media to market his own store brands and his grocery stores was unparalleled at the time, and he coupled it with entertainment from the area. He first began to market on the radio in 1929, advertising weekly specials and events at his stores in the Knoxville area. Over the years, he expanded and added local singers and local entertainment, first over the airwaves of radio and later expanded to an hour-long morning show called “The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour.” For many of us who grew up in that era, his show was part of our mornings.
His media and marketing caused him to become a household name in the area. He used his radio and television time to espouse his views on the low prices of his grocery stores and local politics. He is correctly considered one of the area’s local populist politicians. Cas was elected to Knoxville City Council in 1941. In 1946 he was elected mayor and started ousting the establishment from long-held positions. He had a major tiff with the City Manager, and according to local news stories of the day, he was ousted in a recall election. Using the bully pulpit of radio, he was reelected to City Council and served there for many years, being a constant and controversial political figure that challenged established politics and norms. In 1956 he received national attention when a photograph of Cas punching a fellow politician at a City Council meeting was published in Life magazine. The argument was over property assessments.
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Cas published a newsletter called “The Watchdog,” where he wrote of his conservative views and attacked other local politicians, their associates, and business interests. He referred to himself as “The old coon hunter” and used that moniker in his writing and on his television show. Cas was elected interim mayor of Knoxville in 1959, and he was succeeded by local politician John Duncan who eventually became a U.S. Congressman. In 1971 he ended his thirty-year career on the Knoxville City Council but continued to publish “The Watchdog” until a 1983 lawsuit. He is credited for successfully delaying the merging of the city and county governments several times over the years.
During this period, Cas was still successfully marketing his grocery stores and continued to expand. “The Farm and Home Hour.” He started successfully using television in 1953, and Cas continued to host the show, espouse his political views, and sell his groceries and other things. He produced everything from his own brand of coffee to salve. His show was a showcase for local talent that began the careers of Knoxville’s Everly Brothers and Sevierville’s Dolly Parton. Ironically, he takes second place to the young woman from Sevierville, Dolly Parton, as its most successful early resident.
Dolly Parton first sang on the Cas Walker show in 1956, where she became a regular entertainer on “The Farm and Home Hour” until she left the area to pursue fame and fortune. She returned for a cameo appearance in 1967.
Dolly was one of many people he hosted on his popular morning television show. He brought many country music greats to the area to perform. Among them were Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins, Bill Monroe, Jim Nabors, Jimmy Martin, and Carl Smith. Local regular musicians included: Red Rector, Fred E. Smith, The Webster Bothers, Bud and Willie G. Brewster, Little Robert Van Winkle, Gloria Jean, and many other local folks. “The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour” left television in 1983.
In a well-known quote about Cas, his political mentor-turned-rival, George Dempster, once said, “If I ordered a whole carload of SOB’s and they just sent Cas, I’d sign for the shipment.”
No matter how you view Cas Walker, he impacted local government, entertainment, and as a businessman and grocer. He has his own archives today at the University of Tennessee, where they are preserving stories about him. He is remembered as a country music fan and advocate extraordinaire, one of the local government’s most successful populist politicians, and of course, an innovative businessman. Cas Walker died in 1998 at the age of ninety-six in Knoxville, Tennessee.
While writing this story, the theme song for the “Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour” show keeps running thru my head:
Pick up the morning paper when it hits the streets,
Cas Walker’s prices just can’t be beat,
Drink some Blue Ban Coffee and you’ll want some more,
Compare the grocery prices at the Cas Walker stores.
