The Cas Walker Stories Project gathers the tales and legends told about one of 20th century Knoxville’s most famous citizens. Cas Walker was a grocer-politician-media celebrity-music promoter-coon hunter whose colorful life has become the stuff of the region’s favorite urban legends.
The project has recorded oral histories with many who knew Cas Walker, as friends, employees, and political rivals or allies, and collected others from the public. Many of these are gathered in Cas Walker: Stories on his Life and Legend, published by UT Press. This book was edited by Joshua Hodge, a PhD student in the History Department who passed away while the book was in its final stages of completion. An endowment fund is being raised in his name, which will be used to support graduate research.
The oral histories that Josh recorded will be deposited with the Knox County Library’s archives. Samples of these interviews can be found here.