Posted on 05/02/2007 7:33:42 AM PDT by SmithL
KNOXVILLE: Jake Butcher helped bring the World’s Fair to the city in 1982, but the collapse of his banking empire soon after "took a lot of wind out of the sails for Knoxville," he said in a recent interview.
WBIR-TV in Knoxville interviewed Butcher for the station’s coverage of the 25th anniversary of the World’s Fair that began May 1, 1982. The interview, a first for Butcher in many years, was aired Tuesday evening.
Butcher, 70, former chairman of United American Bank, also was chairman of the Knoxville International Energy Exposition board of directors and used his political ties and financing prowess to garner support for the fair.
The fair was widely considered a success and brought in more than 11 million people over its six-month run. City officials hoped the fair would lead to redevelopment at the site, a former railyard downtown.
Instead, the aftermath of the fair was the banking scandal that landed Butcher and his brother, C.H. Butcher Jr., in federal prison for fraud.
"I got a lot of misery at the end. It was my fault. I have no one to blame but myself," Butcher said in the interview.
"If I had been successful and hadn’t had the great debacle in banking that happened to me, we might have been challenging Nashville today. We really had things going for us in Knoxville. We could have had headquarters of the larger banks. We could have had headquarters of insurance companies. That’s what it takes. You’ve got to get a power base. Knoxville has never really had a power base."
The Butchers operated 27 banks in Tennessee and Kentucky. The banks collapsed in 1983 under the weight of unsecured loans, paper corporations loaded with debt and a massive shell game in which loans were shuffled from one bank to another ahead of the bank examiners. It was the fourth-largest banking failure at the time.
Jake Butcher was paroled in 1992. C.H. Butcher was paroled in 1993 and died in 2002.
Butcher said Knoxville, the third-largest city in Tennessee, stayed "flat" after the fair and scandal.
"The momentum stopped and it took a long time to build again," he said. "It took a lot of wind out of the sails for Knoxville."
The energy expo was often referred to as "Jake’s Fair," and Butcher appears to enjoy talking about bringing the large event to Knoxville. During the interview, he wore a watch with four rubies and a gold face bearing the fair’s flame logo.
He recalled many other people who worked with him, funny stories of getting the Bureau of International Expositions in Paris to approve Knoxville as a host and a late telephone call from President Carter to say he was backing it.
A mixture of Republicans and Democrats helped the fair along, and Butcher, twice a Democratic candidate for Tennessee governor in the 1970s, even talked governors around the South into giving their federal highway funds to Tennessee to help rebuild the city’s interstates in time for the fair. A project that would normally take 10 to 15 years was whittled down to only a few.
"There wasn’t an eagle that flew over this valley down here and dropped the World’s Fair. It took a lot of people," Butcher said. "Sometimes I get a lot of the blame. Sometimes I get a lot of the credit. I probably shouldn’t be blamed that much, and I probably don’t deserve all the credit."
Butcher, who didn’t disclose where he lives in Georgia, still visits Knoxville and is working in real estate development.
One of the few things I remember was the giant Ferris Wheel. That, and how bored I was in the exhibits from other countries.
Oh, I liked the foreign exhibits. But I tended to like stuff most other kids didn’t care for. Do you remember they had people sitting at tables that if you gave them a buck or two, they’d write your name in that particular foreign language ?
Funny, I don’t remember the Ferris Wheel...
A lot of people likely couldn't find it. The overall layout wasn't that good because of limited land aviability. The rides were down past the China exibit away from all other exhibits along the river on UT property. I don't know who decided to put the fair in that location but right through the middle of it was a railroad track. Every morning before opening time a train went through and back again at night. The location was actually largely built on the old Knoxville L&N Rail Road Depot land.
Where they put it was the equivalent of our rapidly changing railroad gulch here in Nashville. I mean, where else could they have put it ? The only alternative was out in the sticks.
Plenty of places believe it or night. Downtown Knoxville which is where they had it was dying in the mid 1970's. It was hard to access, hard to find parking spaces, and lacked other businesses which had migrated to West Knoxville. At that time there waws plenty of highly accessable and more visable land in north, east, and west, Knoxville. There were just too many issues including a major creek {Second Creek I think} running through the middle which carried the city storm run off.
I worked there {in maintenance as a HVAC and Electrical mechanic} and several times we had to kill power to buildings because the flood water approached the power panels located on the creek bank. Once I walked in near knee deep water down one of the main walk ways next to the Convention Center beside the Holiday Inn which was another mess. Poor design in a poor location. Limited space for the number of persons they were trying to attract.
What’s more remarkable is that Knoxville landed the World’s Fair at all. You think of all the major city locales they’d usually be at, New Orleans, Vancouver, Montreal, et al, but Knoxville ? It was no surprise there was some funny business to get it there (between Carter, the Butchers, etc.), rodent shenanigans in a Republican city, no less.
Butcher and the mayor more or less pushed it plus a couple of more developers who left town afterward some to Chattanooga actually. But in Knoxville both parties have their share of bad deals. Alexander was a backer of Whittle Communications which cut a deal to build it's corporate Head Quarters in Knoxville. The campus was built and they left town shortly after. The city was stuck with a building one of many at the time in the downtown area empty.
Downtown has come back a little bit mostly being converted to residence etc but if you want to shop you better hit the outlying areas such as Knoxville Center {formerly called East Towne Mall or West Town Mall. Most business development is west actually. East and west Knoxville and County has better terrain for building on. North Knox County has some places but not quite as flat. Emory Road on I-75 north is about the limit of it on the north side and it's growing up fast now.
One last thing. I think if the fair hadn't gone bust contributing to the banking failures Jake Butcher and not Clinton would have been the DEMs 1992 choice in the POTUS race.
Butcher was never going to be elected Governor, so a possibility for President in '92 was highly unlikely. He ran in '78, not in '82 (and even so, he would've been out of office as Governor for either 6 or 10 years by then, unless he would've challenged Gore for the Senate seat in '84, a bloody primary that might've resulted in our holding Baker's seat with, say, former Congressman Robin Beard, Sasser's challenger in '82), and although he had to inherit the substantial baggage that Ray Blanton's Democrat affiliation, I doubt he would've won even if Blanton had been clean (and the sole reason Blanton won in '74 was because of Watergate and Lamar! working for the Nixon WH). You might recall that Alexander obliterated Mayor Tyree in the '82 election by 60-40%, and that was a bad GOP year. Probably even helped carry one Don Sundquist to an open House seat over the favored Bob Clement in a 'Rat gerrymandered seat that is now one of the most GOP in the state, the 7th.
Someone was backing Jake politically. Quite possibly the same ones who brought Clinton up through the ranks. Jake had the charm CH had the shrewdness. The 1982 Worlds Fair left a bitter taste in many peoples mouth. From persons who had converted carports into apartments to rent out to people who were forced out of apartments they had long rented. Knoxville as a whole didn't want that fair. Blanton, the Mayor, and the Butchers and friends however did.
BTW on a funny note. The Mayor Randy Tyree-D was not invited to the opening day celebrations which included a visit from President Reagan.
Mayor Tyree was the Democrat nominee in ‘82, not Butcher. Butcher didn’t run in 1982 (if he did, he never made it to the primary). Tyree’s main opponent was Gov. Frank Clement’s sister and Bob Clement’s aunt, State Sen. Anna Belle Clement O’Brien, whom Tyree edged 50-40%.
1982 Dem primary candidates:
http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=28526
Interestingly, I rechecked and noticed Butcher did run in the 1974 Dem primary, and trailed ex-Congressman Blanton by only 2.5% (Blanton won only a paltry 22.7%, and of course, absent runoffs... moonbats and criminals have quite the opportunity). Had Butcher been the nominee that year, it’s quite likely he would’ve won the general, indeed.
It’s frightening to realize that the Dem party in this state has had a near-permanent criminal class every inch as bad as Arkansas or Louisiana running this state, or coming achingly close to running it. Reminds me of why I became a Republican in the first place, solely in reaction to their permanent corruption.
I figured Tyree was a puppet. The Butchers would’ve been stupid (from a business perspective) not to hedge their bets. Tyree was not much of an opponent for Alexander as it turned out. I was never terribly enamored of Alexander, and I’d vote for anyone running against him in the primary. I personally hope he retires next year. President Fred can make him Ambassador to Botswana. We’ve had far too many grab-the-ankles Republicans in this state.
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