Community involvement:

Planted hudreds of woods in Cleveland, area schools Funded scholarships to Cleveland State Community university for Bradley County senior high school graduates Gave $4 million for University of Tennessee aquatic center Gave $1.3 million for Cleveland senior high school wrestling center Contributes to direct lender payday loans in Washington greater Calling Wrestling Club to aid youth wrestle Helped recruit mentoring staff for Cleveland High wrestling Gave $30,000 to National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum Gave $500,000 to University of Tennessee wrestling Gave $100,000 to University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletics Funded TSSAA wrestling finals broadcast created MainStreet Cleveland Wrote tree ordinance and produced tree board in Cleveland Donated to Cleveland Public Library Created Tall Betsy goblin and and attraction Bought and preserved Craigmiles Hall in Cleveland Donated for Pangle Hall at Lee University

Needless to say Allan Jones had been the baby that is first at Bradley Memorial Hospital in Cleveland, Tennesssee, on New 12 months’s Eve 1952. Right from the start, fate seemingly have selected him out from the audience.

Jones was raised as a middle-class kid in Cleveland but has since built a kingdom of kinds inside the hometown: a lord by having a hilltop manor and a business owner’s golden touch. He is bigger than life, in a variety of ways similar to the commercial leaders of this nineteenth century than a small-town businessman whom was raised throughout the Cold War.

Jones knows all of this. He has got a self-awareness that is keen their spot on the planet. He does not simply just take himself too really or take to way too hard to be an inconspicuous multimillionaire that is modern. He will pause a discussion to “take a drip.” He bought the stuffed alligator that is largest ever killed in Florida whenever their favorite team, the University of Tennessee Volunteers, overcome its archrival, the University of Florida Gators, twelve months.

Allan Jones is really a philanthropist, a wrestling fanatic, a razor-sharp businessman and a risk-taker. He is additionally the godfather of payday financing in addition to savior of America’s earliest suit maker. Some individuals love him plus some individuals hate him. Many people want just just what he’s and despise him for having it. All of it goes with being one of many wealthiest individuals in Tennessee.

He is been called a robber baron by governmental pundits because his cash advance and dealership franchises — Check Into Cash, purchase Here spend Here, U.S. Money Shops — usually be determined by a low-income or clientele that is financially struggling making short-term, high-interest loans which can be with the capacity of dragging the bad deeper into debt.

Jones is recognized as by numerous to be a 1 percenter whom made his fortune from the 99 per cent. In 2005, BusinessTN mag estimated their worth that is net at $500 million, placing him among Tennessee’s Top 20 many wealthy individuals during the time. A profile posted the Huffington Post a years that are few pegged their organizations’ after-tax earnings at $20 million per year.

He is been skewered in nationwide news outlets, called “odious” and “repellent,” not forgetting greedy and racist. He is been lampooned for the extravagant life he lives while his customers clean by, paycheck to paycheck. But Jones life outside the lines, and outside of the neat containers his experts and fans make an effort to place him in. As their experts assail him, Jones turns around and gives millions to your University of Tennessee along with his alma mater Cleveland senior school for athletics, to Cleveland’s Lee University for the brand new building, to improvement tasks inside the hometown.

The chance to get two free years of community college, Jones committed to funding two years at Cleveland State Community College for any graduating senior in Bradley County in 2011, four years before Tennessee launched a program to allow graduating seniors.

In 2014, Jones invested $1.9 million of their individual fortune buying Hardwick Clothes, America’s earliest suit maker, which was taking a loss for many years and had been finally forced into bankruptcy. A shutdown of Hardwick could have meant 200-plus Cleveland employees losing their jobs and an— that is american more to the point, a Cleveland — institution going under. Jones invested millions employing a blue-chip group to lead Hardwick and also to buy brand brand new gear to create the factory floor as much as date.

He jokes that due to him, Hardwick is currently losing additional money than in the past.

But Jones is not any simple free-spending jester. And he is through no means a rookie. He does not think Hardwick will probably fail. He thinks in his opportunities. He thinks in Cleveland, and its own people — the spirit that is intangible of town.