OUR STORIES: The "Scruffy Little City" pulls off a real World's Fair

The 1982 World's Fair was in the planning and development stage for eight years before it opened its gates.

The idea was first prposed in 1974 by Sturat Evans, then the president of the Downtown Knoxville Association.

There was plenty of controversy before the way was finally cleared in 1977 for the Fair. Then the work began: securing financing; lining up exhibitors, and turning an old train switching yard into a Fair.

It was a $100 million project. A little more than 10 percent came from the city to buy the site, the abandoned area in the lower Second Creek Valley.

The federal government kicked in $12 million for site development and $20 million for the U.S. Pavilion.

Banks, including Jake Butcher's United American Bank, put up $30 million in loans. The rest came from corporations, exhibitors, and Knoxvillians, who contributed $1 million.

As work began on the Fair, the state Department of Transportation widened Interstates 40 and 75, rebuilt "Malfunction Junction," and completed the east leg of I-640.

As the years, months and days counted down to opening day, work on the Fair site was feverish. Old buildings on the periphery, including the Candy Factory, the L&N Station, and the old Knoxville Iron Foundry were renovated.

There were naysayers, locally and nationally. The Wall Street Journal published an article questioning whether a World's Fair could be successful in Knoxville, which they described as "a scruffy little city on the banks of the Tennessee River."

In the months prior to the Fair, some people who owned rental housing near the site evicted about 1,000 monthly tenants in order to make space for high-paying Fair renters.

But many of those apartmets remained vacant; the landlords lost money due to their own greed.

Construction and touch-ups continued right up until opening day. Then, nearly 100,000 people streamed through the gates on May 1, 1982. They saw exhibits from 22 nations, 90 corporations and six states.

Adding to the excitement, President Ronald Reagan was on hand to officially open the Fair.