Armed teens invade Knoxville bank

The year was 1979 and I was 13 years old. My best friend, Kevin, and I were on a mission, a mission to invade the Butcher Bank building in downtown Knoxville. No, we didn't want to rob the bank, we just wanted to climb to the top to see if we could see House Mountain from up there.

It was a hot August day. School was going to be starting in a couple of weeks and time was wasting. The night before our mission, we camped out in my Papaw Chesney's woods. We were up most of the night, planning out the details, sitting around a campfire, sharpening our knives, and spitting in the fire. Our biggest hurdle would be making the 14-mile trip from where we lived on Maloneyville Rd. in Corryton, to Gay Street in downtown Knoxville, all before our parents could realize that we were missing.

The next morning, we woke up at the butt-crack of dawn to the sounds of cows munching on the grass beside our campsite. We walked up the hill to Papaw's well house, ran water over our heads, and took a big drink. We straddled our bikes and off we peddled up the road towards Knoxville. Kevin had a slight advantage because he was skinny and owned a 10-speed. I was a husky feller and only had an old 20" BMX style bicycle. Needless to say, I was the cause of some delay on the way.

In about 4 hours, we finally reached Gay Street. (Yeah, I know, it took a while, but we did stop and get a coke on the way!) Let me tell you, the traffic back then wasn't anything compared to today's traffic, but when two teenage boys showed up riding bikes down Gay Street, it caused quite a stir.

We made our way to the only place that looked like we could enter the bank, the ground floor of the garage. There was an electronic wooden gate covering the entrance, so we laid our bikes on their sides, pushed them underneath, and then crawled under after them. We had no more than gotten inside of the garage when a loud voice came over an intercom, "Vehicles Only Allowed in the Garage!!!" We nearly hi-tailed it out of there right then and there, but we had come too far to turn back at this point. We walked up to a guard and told him that we had ridden our bikes for 4 hours to see the big glass building and was there any way possible that he would let us go in? With a stern look on his face, the guard looked us up and down, broke into a grin, and said, "OK, just leave your bikes here, and follow those steps right here." We were giddy with delight!

Now you can only imagine the reaction of folks when two 13 year old boys, wearing t-shirts and cut-off jeans, covered in dirt and sweat, with Swiss Army knives bulging from their pockets, walked into the lobby of the Jake Butcher Bank building! People must have thought we were nuts. I guess that luck was with us that morning though because a real nice gentleman wearing a black suit, walked up to us and said, "Now what are you two boys up to?" We laid out our whole story on him right there in the bank lobby. The man kind of snickered and said, "Follow me, boys." We got on an elevator and the man pushed a button. We started traveling up, up, up, up. It seemed like forever. The bank is only 27-floors high, but, by gosh, that was the highest we had ever ridden in an elevator before! We finally reached the top and the kind man led us into a huge room. We walked over to the window that was facing northeast, and yep, sure enough, we could see House Mountain from the top! Hooray! Our mission was a success!

The man took us back down to the parking garage and told us to be careful on our way back home. We thanked him, saddled our bikes, and huffed it back home. Our parents never even knew that we had been gone. Man those were the days! Can you imagine your 13-year old child doing that sort of thing these days? Heck, my wife and I won't even let our kids play out in the front yard by themselves!

Oh, by the way, that nice man that took us to the top of the Butcher Bank building? Well, the guard in the garage called him...Mr. Butcher!

5 Interesting Facts:

1. My father's best friend was a guard at the Butcher bank. He said that if the electronic gate was not lifted quick enough when Jake arrived to park, that he would just ram the gate full force with his car. He says that they had to replace the gate several times!

2. The 27th floor of the bank is a private club called "Club LeConte." It's only for the hoity-toity folks.

3. It is the tallest building in Knoxville and the tallest between Winston-Salem, NC and Nashville, TN.

4. The official name of the building is the Plaza Tower, however, most Knoxvillians still call it the Butcher Bank building.

5. The Butcher banking scandal is still the 4th largest banking scandal in the history of the United States. Read more about it here.