Visiting the Boyhood Home of Johnny Cash
Driving west to Colorado from Tennessee, it would have made sense to take I-40 through Memphis. However, a nagging voice in my head (traveler’s intuition) told me to save Memphis for another time, hopefully when I have a travel buddy. I zoomed waaaaay in on the map to find Dyess, Arkansas. It has a current population of 388 but one very famous resident in the 1930’s-40’s: U.S. music legend Johnny Cash. It’s in the northeast corner of the state near the borders of Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee and only added an hour max of driving time than if I’d stayed on the interstate. Arkansas was my 38th state visited.
If you’ve seen the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, you have already seen this place as the beginning was filmed right here. (If you haven’t seen that movie, you are really missing out.) You might chuckle thinking that these dusty fields and tiny town are not typical tourist “destinations,” but it was notable to me how many international travelers have made this journey.
You will start by visiting the Administration Building in the center of town, and then you will take a short drive out to the Cash home. The exhibit does a tasteful job of pointing out that these humble beginnings and heroic actions (as I think settlers are very brave) applied to all the members of the Cash family, each of whom is talented in his or her own right. My parents recently attended a concert of one of his daughters, Roseanne Cash, and she even discussed the home, the colony and its historical significance, which was neat since I told them all about my visit just a few weeks prior.
I spent more time at the Administration Building than the home because it offered exhibits not just about the Cashes but about all the families who homesteaded there in the 1930’s through President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal which included this program of rural resettlement cooperatives. Wow! I knew about the New Deal but not this specific endeavor and how it shaped U.S. history. As a Westerner (in this case I mean from the Western U.S.; all of us in the U.S. are considered “Westerners” by some regions of the world), I identify strongly with the Pioneer Spirit and am proud of those settlers who came out west. But I was equally inspired by the stories of those chosen for the Dyess Colony including the Cash family. The land was not just up for grabs; families had to pass an extensive screening process which included questions about “tempermental peculiarities, loose morals and petty thievery.”
After the colony history, you cross the hallway and learn more about Johnny Cash’s childhood and the entire family. One thing that especially delighted me was this “little black book” that Johnny picked up on his high school senior class trip, presumably to the Great Smoky Mountains, in which I just spent a lot of time in and near and will certainly blog about eventually.
After this, you’ll drive a couple minutes back out of town to the Cash home. When I visited in December 2014, my tour guide was a nice college student whose car I followed in my own. I think they called her when I showed up at the Administration Building and she drove in from school. Keep in mind, this is a new but modest museum in a very modest town! Eventually, they may have a shuttle system, but since I was the only guest and continuing my road trip immediately after, it was certainly not a problem to drive myself.
The house is preserved in its glory to reflect the historical value of both the original colony homes and the Cash family. You can see the quilting frame on the ceiling, the sign used to indicate a need for ice (the technology of early refrigeration) and the piano around which the family would gather nightly and sing gospel. The five room home doesn’t offer much space for tourists to roam – imagine growing up here with several siblings. But that is the case in comparison with most modern homes.
My experience at the historic colony museum and Cash home took about 90 minutes at most. It had a nominal fee which I feel goes to a good cause because I learned a lot more about the region and nation’s history. I am really glad I found this “random roadside attraction” and took a small detour. The time spent to get here and be here was well-worth it, and I would definitely recommend visiting if ever you find yourself in this part of the states/country/world.
Destination: Historic Dyess Colony Boyhood Home of Johnny Cash. Dyess, Arkansas, USA
Expense: $10 includes museum and home. Check the hours to make sure you arrive in plenty of time to enjoy. 60-90 minutes
Road trip tunes: Collection by The Be Good Tanyas. Great collection indeed by an extremely talented trio of Canadian women. Their sound really fits with the region, and if you read the description on Amazon, you’ll understand why. As to understanding why I wasn’t listening to Johnny Cash as I visited his childhood home: I still use CDs when road-trippping, and the Johnny Cash + June Carter Cash CD I’d burned long ago stopped playing about an hour from the house. Go figure! Read more about why I was “having a moment” by the time I arrived in Dyess.
Trailheaders Road Trip Recommendation: About four hours away by car is Nashville, Tennessee. It offers The Johnny Cash Museum and Event Space and is a Mecca of American country, country-Western and country-ish pop music history. Memphis, Tennessee is an hour south of Dyess and is the home of Elvis Presley’s Graceland. It would be quite logical to tour all three of these places within a 3-5+ day road-trip. I just wouldn’t know where to stop around these parts, though, in terms of awesome “American” music. The Ozark Mountains in Western Arkansas, the Appalachians on the other side of Tennessee (and beyond), Kentucky blue grass and bourbon, blues around St. Louis, Cajun swamp rock down in Louisiana… What I’m getting at is that practically everywhere you go in the United States, you can find music that is very special, often unique to the heritage and identity of the region and played by lots of talented musicians! Keep your eyes open for the roadside signs, and keep your ears open for the songs!
Your voice matters!