Watauga

In late 1974 or early 1975—no one remembers precisely when—a rising, young politician named Richard Fulton got a telephone call. Fulton was in Washington at the time, representing Nashville in Congress. A liberal Democrat elected to the U.S. House in 1962, he had cast gutsy votes in favor of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and Medicare. He had also done a good job tending to his political bases back home. While Nashville’s conservative business community may not have liked some of Fulton’s positions—particularly his close ties to labor—they respected his honesty and diligence.

The person calling Fulton that day was no stranger. It was Eddie Jones, a fellow East High School alum who was then head of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. Jones and Fulton had spent much of their adult lives in the political trenches. And because both were active in the public life of the city, their paths crossed frequently.

On this particular day, Jones was on a mission. Days earlier, a secret organization of Nashville businessmen had met to discuss who was going to be the city’s next mayor. Known as “Watauga,” the influential organization included the cream of Nashville’s most powerful citizens. The 15 to 20 members were the heads of the city’s locally owned banks, the CEOs of its most important companies, the chancellor of Vanderbilt University and a smattering of the city’s most powerful attorneys. Members met regularly, usually once a month. Over lunch or breakfast in a member’s boardroom, they would gather to discuss the direction of the city. During the course of its roughly two-decade lifespan, Watauga would leave a huge imprint on Nashville, ranging from politics to race relations to capital projects to the city’s nonprofit groups.

At the time Jones was placing his phone call to Fulton, he was tending to the latest Watauga undertaking. One of the most pressing concerns the city faced in 1974 was electing a successor to outgoing Mayor Beverly Briley. Metro Trustee Glenn Ferguson appeared to be gaining steam for a mayoral campaign, and The Tennessean was expected to endorse him at any time. But the prospect of Ferguson as mayor had set a number of the Watauga members on edge. As one member recalled recently, Ferguson was viewed by the business community as a “rat around the barn.”

At one of its meetings, Watauga set about finding its own candidate. Eventually, the idea of backing Fulton for the office gained steam. Before long, Watauga member Bill Weaver, the towering, garrulous head of National Life and Accident, the city’s huge insurance company and owner of the Grand Ole Opry, was deputized to convince Fulton to run for the job.

Weaver, however, did not know Fulton well. So Weaver called Jones to set up the meeting. The idea was to ask Fulton to drop by Weaver’s house on a Saturday; several other Watauga members would be there too.

“When I called Fulton, he said he wouldn’t mind going,” Jones recalls, “but he asked if they’d mind if he showed up in tennis shorts because he had a game that day. I said no, I didn’t think they’d mind. Then he asked, 'What’s this about?’ And I said, 'I have an idea what it’s about, and I’m not telling, but for your own benefit you should go.’ ”

And so, the Watauga delegation and Fulton gathered at Weaver’s gracious home on Jackson Boulevard in Belle Meade. Joining Weaver in his cozy sun room, which looked out over a nicely groomed boxwood garden, were two other Watauga members: David K. “Pat” Wilson, a behind-the-scenes powerbroker and chairman of Cherokee Equity Corp. who was also the finance chairman of the national Republican Party; and Jack Massey, a pharmacist who had made one fortune in Kentucky Fried Chicken and was about to make another in Hospital Corp. of America. The meeting was, in many ways, one of those pivotal moments when apparent political opposites unite for their mutual benefit. Fulton was an East Nashville native with a working-class pedigree and a liberal streak a mile wide; the three Watauga members, all of whom lived in Belle Meade, were wealthy, conservative and entirely unaccustomed to the rough-and-tumble of local ward politics.

Weaver and Massey are both deceased, but Wilson, who is retired, recalls the day clearly. “Fulton was unsure of his base, but we told him we’d support him and raise whatever money was necessary for him to run a campaign,” Wilson remembers. “None of us in Watauga was necessarily out there waving political flags, but we were interested in what was going on and wanted a good mayor for the city.”

Fulton, for his part, says the idea of running for mayor had not crossed his mind until he met with Watauga. “They told me they thought I would be good for the city, and they obviously felt like I was electable,” he says. “I was honored that they thought that way.”