Cas Walker: Stories on His Life and Legend

by Joshua S. Hodge (Editor), Ernest Frithiof Freeberg (Contributor)

Businessman, politician, broadcasting personality, and newspaper publisher, Cas Walker (1902–1998) was, by his own estimation, a “living legend” in Knoxville for much of the twentieth century. Renowned for his gravelly voice and country-boy persona, he rose from blue-collar beginnings to make a fortune as a grocer whose chain of supermarkets extended from East Tennessee into Virginia and Kentucky. To promote his stores, he hosted a local variety show, first on radio and then TV, that advanced the careers of many famed country music artists from a young Dolly Parton to Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins, and Bill Monroe. As a member of the Knoxville city council, he championed the “little man” while ceaselessly irritating the people he called the “silk-stocking crowd.”  This wonderfully entertaining book brings together selections from interviews with a score of Knoxvillians, various newspaper accounts, Walker’s own autobiography, and other sources to present a colorful mosaic of Walker’s life. The stories range from his flamboyant advertising schemes—as when he buried a man alive outside one of his stores—to memories of his inimitable managerial style—as when he infamously canned the Everly Brothers because he didn’t like it when they began performing rock ’n’ roll. Further recollections call to mind Walker’s peculiar brand of bare-knuckle politics, his generosity to people in need, his stance on civil rights, and his lifelong love of coon hunting (and coon dogs). The book also traces his decline, hastened in part by a successful libel suit brought against his muckraking weekly newspaper, the Watchdog.  It’s said that any Knoxvillian born before 1980 has a Cas Walker story. In relating many of those stories in the voices of those who still remember him, this book not only offers an engaging portrait of the man himself and his checkered legacy, but also opens a new window into the history and culture of the city in which he lived and thrived. 

Genres: Biography, Business

202 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2019

Reviews

[David Ward]

Cas Walker: Stories on His Life and Legend edited by Joshua S. Hodge (University of Tennessee Press / Knoxville 2019) (Biography) (3530).

As anyone from East Tennessee can tell you, there will never be another Cas Walker.

Orton Caswell “Cas” Walker (1902 – 1998) grew up poor in the mountains of East Tennessee. He was the youngest boy in a family of a dozen children; the hardscrabble farm where he grew up is now part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Though he was proud to proclaim that his formal education ended in the Fourth Grade, he was a hard worker and a born promoter. He eventually accumulated a fortune and died a millionaire many times over.

As a very young man Cas worked in a coal mine and pinched pennies until he accumulated a grub stake of $800.00. He quit his job in the mine and promptly bought a grocery store in Knoxville, Tennessee. Cas thus began his lifelong career building a chain of groceries called “Cas Walker Supermarkets.” Each Cas Walker store had a neon sign out front which showed a large set of scissors clipping a dollar in half; this “Sign of the Shears” became one of the chain's trademarks.

Cas Walker had three passions, in each of these, he became a star: his businesses, coon hunting, and politics.

Cas was known to do most anything to promote his grocery stores. He once threw live chickens off the roof of a store one Saturday afternoon to huge throngs of shoppers. A few caught free chickens; the rest were treated to what had to have been a true chicken-tossing spectacle. On another occasion, Cas hired a young man named Digger O'Dell to be buried in a hole six feet deep in the parking lot of one of Cas' stores. People came from miles around to peer down a pipe into a hole in the parking lot to see the buried man with their own eyes. Cas knew that every one of those people in the crowd would stay to buy groceries, and he was proven right.

When Elvis Presley died in 1977, the Cas Walker supermarkets offered shoppers copies of Elvis' Last Will and Testament for a dollar with a ten-dollar grocery order. And customers loved it!

Cas Walker was heavily involved in local politics. He twice served as the mayor of Knoxville. He was known as a regressive populist. Anything new that was proposed made Cas immediately suspicious. He referred to himself as an “agin'er,” for when new ideas (such as the proposed addition in the late 1960's of fluoride to the municipal water supply to promote sound oral care) were considered, Cas would inevitably be against it (as an agin'er).

Cas was best known nationally for a 1956 photo of Cas that appeared in Life Magazine. The photo was taken at a Knoxville City Council meeting and featured Cas throwing a punch in the middle of a fistfight with another local politician over some forgotten issue.

Maybe there are characters like Cas Walker everywhere. I've lived in quite a few places, and I've never heard of anyone else that measures up to Cas' gold standard.

My rating: 7.25/10, finished 4/30/21 (3530).

[10/2/25 - Re-read Cas Walker: Stories on His Life and Legend edited by Joshua S. Hodge (2019). This was just as interesting as when I read it for the first time. I thought of Cas Walker because I realized that they are currently razing the former Cas Walker Supermarket on Kingston Pike in West Knoxville right beside the old Bearden High School. The location will forever be associated with Cas’ trademark “Sign of the Shears.”

I own a PB copy of this volume.

Rating unchanged, finished 10/02/25 (3530).]

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[Mark Bunch]

If you are from Knoxville and a businessman or political interested person-this one is for you. A fab collection of Cas stories fro days gone by.