When I lived in DC I had very mixed feelings about the impact of the Cherry Blossom Festival. On one hand its creates a ton of Tourism Revenue for the city, on the other the streets and parks become over crowded and you see the increase in litter and pollution at the parks.

I never heard this story and was only familiar with the story the Mayor of Tokyo donated the trees to establish friendly connections with the capital.

A quick search to the Wikipedia page though includes some detail about the Fairchild family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cherry_Blossom_Festiv...