Cas Walker

Orton Caswell "Cas" Walker (March 23, 1902 – September 25, 1998), was a Tennessee businessman, politician, and personality on television and radio. Walker founded a successful chain of small grocery stores that grew to include several dozen stores scattered throughout the Knoxville, Tennessee vicinity as well as parts of Virginia and Kentucky. From 1941 through 1971, Walker served on the Knoxville city council where he became legendary for his uncompromising political stances and his vehement opposition to what he claimed was a corrupt elitism in the city's government. The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour, a local variety show sponsored by Walker, ran in various radio and television formats between 1929 and 1983 and helped launch the careers of entertainer Dolly Parton and the Everly Brothers.

Early life

Walker was the seventh of twelve children born to a working-class family in Sevier County, Tennessee in 1902. He quit school at the age of 14 and spent several years working at different jobs around the region, namely at the Champion Fibre Company in North Carolina and later at various coal mines in Kentucky. In 1924, he returned to East Tennessee where he established the first Cas Walker's Cash Store in Knoxville with money he had saved.

Walker's stores had a simple rural atmosphere that was popular with the city's working class whites and blacks. He used his radio show and other innovative methods— such as scattering coupons from airplanes— to advertise his store's weekly specials. By the mid-1950s, Walker's chain had grown to include 27 stores that generated a gross annual revenue of $60 million. Walker was reelected to the city council the following year and remained until voluntarily retiring in 1971. In his self-published newsletter, The Watchdog, Walker blasted political opponents and raged against tax increases. He also used The Watchdog to launch controversial attacks against his business competitors. In the 1960s, he unsuccessfully opposed plans to fluoridate Knoxville's water supply and played a pivotal role in derailing attempts to consolidate the governments of Knoxville and Knox County.

Walker continued distributing The Watchdog until the early 1980s, when a libel suit forced it out of publication.

Personal life He died at 96 in 1998. A storefront at Dollywood is called "Cas Walker's General Store" in his honor.