view raw text
Derby Casts Its Spell on Louisville City Mecca Today ; Of Sports Lovers Crowd at Track Expected To Total 100,000; Demand For Seats Never Greater By CHARLES HATTON CHURCHILL DOWNS, Louisville. Ky., May 1. — Nobody has yet been able to define the spell which Kentucky Derby Day lays on the nation. Indeed, the late Irvin S. Cobb, who did it better than most, concluded "one would have to be blessed with the tongue of an annointed angel" to describe it adequately. Less gifted journalists just refer to it as "Derby Fever." But whatever it is, the strange witchery that seems to rise with the mists out of muddy and majestic Ohio lures lighthearted thousands of sports fans to Derbytown each May. "The most exciting two minutes in sports" this spring bids fair to exceed even itself as a crowd puller, with resident manager Russell Sweeney declaring the demand for tickets is "by far the greatest in my 19 years experience." Annotating this, president Wathen Knebelkamp sighs: "We could have sold 60,000 more seats. I have been obliged to turn down thousands of written requests which were accompanied by checks." 30 Per Cent of Crowd Out-of-Towners Nobody of the Fourth Estate has ever quite known exactly how many persons and personages are present for any given Derby. Usually, it is estimated 100,000 came to the party. There are some 15,000 employes alone, or perhaps we should say altogether. The Chamber of Commerces convention manager Lew Tingley estimated today that "togetherness" will be really rampant with 100,000 visitors descending on the Downs Continued on Page 75 0 I " "T" 1 i JAMES D. NORRIS — Noted sportsman is represented by Easy Spur. Derby Casts Its Spell on Louisville City Mecca Today | Of Sports Lovers Crowd at Track Expected To Total 100,000; Demand For Seats Never Greater Continued from Page 3 D for this 85th Derby. Add to this Sweeneys estimate that out-of-towners represent only about 30 per cent of the average Derby crowd, and you have a notion of how un-average this one is likely to be, especially with Weather Man O. K. Anderson "willing to bet it will be dry." We hasten to add his allusion is meteorological. By julep time it will be too wet to plow, regardless of track conditions. Hostelries as far west as Paducah, south to Nashville, north to Indianapolis, and east to Lexington are fast filling with visitors checking in for the roaring "mile and one-quarter without any water* on the Downs. Many of the 4,000 hotel rooms in Louisville are maintained by regular Derby fans on a year-to-year basis, not unlike the choicer boxes at Churchill Downs. One does not buy these particular boxes, the vantage points of the late Col. E. R. Bradley. E. F. Simms and others. One inherits them, or acquires the estates priorities. There now are more than 4,000 boxes, some of them constructed by the late Bill Corum. The total represents a 100 per cent increase since 1940. George "Brownie" Leach, who hymns the Derby as Churchill Downs publicist, is au- thority for it that more than 40,000 re- served seats have been sold each of the last three years. And Russell Sweeney attests he has two filing cabinets bursting with requests the club cannot honor. "By February 1, all the individual tickets, other , than in the stadium terrace, where the only real turnover in tickets occurs from year to year, were gone," he said. Economic Effect on City The abnormal "norm" of ,000,000 wagered in the iron men on Derby days is only the beginning of the classics signifi- I cance to Derby town. Hotel rates for Derby j week end average 00. President Preston I Kunz of the local restaurant association I estimates 150 restaurants in the area will increase their employment from 4,200 to 7,000, serving meals averaging .50. This Saturday, taxicabs will convey 20,000 fans to and from the downs. And the Louisville branch of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank has primed Derbytowns economy by putting ,000,000 into circulation to prepare for the crush of Derby business. After the Derby it will get back about ,000,000 from the track, another ,000,000 from the increased flow of routine business. About 20 special trains are scheduled to arrive in Louis»ille Derby eve or Derby dawning. Airlines have upped their extra sections of scheduled flights. And Leonard Hancock, president of the Greater Louisville Hotel and Motel Association, says the Derbys value to the area always will be a multimillion-dollar figure, indeterminable because of the divergent economic situations of the persons it attracts. He said: "One man had his bank send my hotel a letter of credit for ,500, so he will not run out of spending money. Another will arrive with a two-dollar bill and dirty socks and wont change either one." Joe E. Lewis was so right: "Racing is the greatest known device there is for the redistribution of the nations wealth." The thousands of revellers now plying the quarter mile long stands at rambling old Churchill Downs by day, and the multi-lit bistros of Fourth Avenue by night, could not care less for "the figures" except as they apply to the form of the Derby candidates. They figure to have fun.
