Dolly Parton may have made “9 to 5” famous, but when it came to lifting up her hometown, she worked around the clock.
The country music icon never lost sight of her humble beginnings in rural Tennessee, and she turned her worldwide success into a lasting investment at home: Dollywood, a theme park that became an economic anchor for the community that raised her.
Known affectionately as Dollywood’s “Dreamer in Chief,” Parton, who passed away Tuesday at 80, helped draw millions of visitors to a once-struggling mountain region with a deeply personal attraction rooted in Appalachian culture, music and hospitality.
“Dollywood was really the catalyst that has allowed our area to take off,” Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters told The Post on Thursday. “Her promotion of the area all over the world — you can’t buy publicity like that.
“Everywhere she went, she talked about her home and how beautiful it was here, and how great the people were,” Waters added. “That means so much to us.”
Parton’s early life was marked by hardship. Her family grew up in a small cabin without running water or electricity, while her father, who could not read or write, supported the household through farming and labor work.
That upbringing reflected the realities of many families in the Tennessee mountains, and it became the emotional foundation for the songs and stories that later brought Parton global acclaim.
Rather than funneling her fame into a Hollywood lifestyle, Parton chose to build something back home. In 1986, she bought the former Silver Dollar City theme park and transformed it into Dollywood, employing local workers and inviting the world to experience the place that shaped her.
The park now sprawls across 168 acres in the town of Pigeon Forge, and is filled with roller coasters, water rides, an entire steam train and buildings evoking traditional Appalachia and its bygone ways of life.
Central to the park is a board by board recreation of the very cabin Dolly lived in after she was born in 1946 — and even her own kin have a hard time believing the huge family got by in such a small space.
“I can’t imagine how they had so many people in that little house,” Dolly’s niece, Jennifer, said Thursday. “They really had to get along.”
“I was 12 when Dollywood took over from Silver Dollar City, so I remember that,” Jennifer added, referring to the old theme park Dolly bought. “It has changed the community quite a lot. We get lot of traffic now.”
That change today equates to about 4 million people visiting Dollywood each year, and another 21 million pouring into Sevier County thanks to Dolly’s promotion of her hometown, according to Mayor Waters.
And the impact of that traffic is even bigger — Dollywood brings about $2 billion to Sevier County businesses, and is the county’s largest employer with about 4,000 jobs in peak season.
“That’s a positive economic impact from the dream that our dreamer-in-chief had,” said Dollywood president Eugene Naughton.
“She did a great job to help the whole town grow,” he added.
Just as Graceland became a pilgrimage for lovers of Elvis Presley after the King’s passing, Dollywood is sure to become the place where fans will travel to pay tribute to the Queen — and they were already lining up in the days after she died.
“We made the decision after she passed away, we was definitely gonna come,” said Eric Hicks, a 44-year-old oilfield worker who hauled his wife and two of their kids from Virginia to Tennessee to pay their respects to Dolly a day after her death from cancer was announced.
“I feel like she was somebody that America don’t particularly have anymore,” he added. “She was somebody that knowed how to work hard, knowed how to accomplish things, and that’s just something that America lacks now.”
Hicks was one of countless people whose own life was touched by Dolly’s famous generosity — all five of his children grew up reading books donated by Dolly’s Imagination Library, a charity which mails books to kids monthly from birth to kindergarten at no cost.
“We lack people in this country that can come up from a small town with no money and learn and progress,” Hicks said. “Even though you get sent back, you’re able to move on forward and accomplish something. That’s something you just don’t see anymore.”
A moment of silence was held for Dolly at the park around midday Wednesday, while cards and flowers left by loving fans were piled at the entrance gates.
And in downtown Sevierville, more tributes surrounded a statue of the country star outside the County Courthouse.
“She knew how tough it was in Sevier County before our tourism grew and she wanted to give jobs to our families,” said Don Gibson, 65, a deputy with the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office standing guard outside the courthouse.
“And she certainly has, she kept her word. Miss Dolly was a real friend to Sevier County, she never forgot where she was from.”
