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Today’s newsletter is sponsored by the Scott County Chamber of Commerce. Since 1954, the Scott County Chamber of Commerce has advocated for a strong community by supporting stronger infrastructure and leadership.
Poll-Parrot shoes were extremely popular … and tied to Scott County
Today, kids in America beg their parents for shoes made by the likes of Nike and marketed by major basketball stars.
But there was a time when shoes called Poll-Parrots were all the rage.
Poll-Parrots were manufactured in St. Louis, Mo. — as were most other popular shoes in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Drawn by cheap immigrant labor (particularly from Germany), the nation’s top shoemakers set up shop in St. Louis. By 1905, St. Louis was producing one-sixth of all shoes made in the United States.
One of the names making it big in the shoemaking industry was Paul Parrott, who owned a shoe shop in Knoxville and played on his own name by keeping a parrot in the shop.
Eventually, Paul Parrott made began making his own brand of children’s shoes. He called them Poll-Parrots. By the late 1920s, Poll-Parrots were just as big as Air Jordans are today. The International Shoe Co. — which was that era’s equivalent of Nike — purchased the brand in 1928 and added it to its Roberts, Johnson & Rand shoe line that also manufactured the popular kids’ shoes called Star Brand.
By 1929, Poll-Parrot shoes were being advertised in newspapers throughout the country. One such advertisement, featuring the trademark brightly-colored parrot, boasted that “Properly fitted Poll-Parrot shoes will keep youngsters on their toes with pep every minute. Easily cleaned or polished, well made of fine leather and plenty flexible for growing little bones and muscles.”
In acquiring the Poll-Parrot brand, ISC was copying the marketing strategy of another shoemaking giant, Brown Shoe Co., which used a cartoon character (Buster Brown) as a mascot for its own children’s shoes. Other manufacturers were doing the same thing. Giesecke-D’Oench-Hays Shoe co. had Red Goose. Peters Shoe Co. had Weatherbird. And now, ISC had Poll Parrot.
In 1933, ISC began using Poll-Parrot Shoe Money, blanketing small towns across the country with currency-like coupons. They were targeting now just the adults who paid for the shoes, but the children who wore them. The concept was simple: Get free “money” with the purchase of Pol-Parrot shoes, and trade it in for prizes, like a baseball glove, roller skates, a pocketknife, or a watch.
For the next 25 years, Poll-Parrot Shoe Money was a marketing strategy throughout the United States. Kids were encouraged to save their vouchers and encourage others to save theirs, too. A kid could trade in $35 worth of scrip, for example, and get a baseball glove.
The marketing efforts didn’t stop there. Pol-Parrot began its own syndicated radio show — “The Cruise of the Poll Parrot” — which can still be found today on YouTube. And, in the 1950s, Poll-Parrot reached its greatest level of fame by sponsoring The Howdy Doody Show on NBC — the mega-popular series featuring the freckle-faced Howdy Doody and host Buffalo Bob Smith in the Western-themed town of Doodyville.
In time, the Poll-Parrot Shoe Money faded from the scene, but Poll-Parrot shoes remained throughout the 1960s, 1970s and even into the 1980s.
By now, you may be wondering what this story has to do with Scott County, Tenn.
Well, you remember Paul Parrott, who opened a shoe store in St. Louis and developed the Poll-Parrot line of shoes that became immensely popular among kids throughout the nation?
Paul’s father, William Nelson Parrott, owned Oneida’s first motel — The Oneida House, a three-story building that also housed Oneida’s first restaurant. And it was there, in The Oneida House, that Paul Parrott, the famous shoe store owner, was born in 1898.
William Nelson Parrott died in 1901, at the age of just 35. When he did, The Oneida House was purchased by Eli Cooper — father of Oneida’s hugely successful early businessman, H.F. Cooper, the man who built downtown Oneida. Eli moved from McCreary County to Oneida — along with 13-year-old H.F. — to purchase the motel, which he changed the name of to City Hotel.
William Parrott was buried at Marcum Cemetery, just outside of town. He had a baby girl, Pauline Parrott, who had been buried there in 1897.
Paul’s mother — William’s wife — was Lucy Katherine “Cassie” Byrd, a native Scott Countian. Born about 1878, she was the daughter of Milton Asbury Byrd and Nancy Chitwood of Helenwood. She and William were married in Roane County in 1896, and made their home in Oneida. Following William’s death, she remarried to William B. Flenniken in 1903 and moved to Knoxville. She lived until 1961, when she died of a heart attack.
As for Paul Parrott, he lived until 1986, when he died and was buried at Knoxville’s Woodlawn Cemetery, where his wife (Neel Reynolds), mother, stepfather, and other members of his family are also buried.
And that’s the story of how one of the 1900s’ most popular brands of shoes were literally born in Scott County, Tennessee.
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Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)
Always learn something when I read these memories. I grew up across from the Cooper home and they were kind neighbors.