Dollywood: Separating fact from fiction behind the creation of Dolly Parton's dream theme park

While Nashville is full of honky-tonks and bars emblazoned with the names of country stars, from Jason Aldean and Dierks Bentley to Miranda Lambert and Kid Rock, no other hit-making celebrity has been audacious enough to create a theme park where they are the theme.

Like Dolly Parton.

But ask most visitors to her namesake Dollywood amusement park and they will repeat the myth that Parton built Dollywood from the ground up to put her hometown of Pigeon Forge, Tenn., on the map.

The truth, however, is a lot more nuanced.

Before Dollywood...

A theme park has occupied the land where Dollywood now stands since 1961. Before Dollywood came to be, three different parks stood on the site. They got bigger and better with each iteration and were already successful by the time Parton arrived on the scene.

A decade before Parton became involved, the park was purchased by Jack and Pete Herschend. The brothers were experienced amusement-park operators who already owned the Ozark-themed Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo. Their new park, Silver Dollar City, Tenn., was a success. But, Jack and Pete found an opportunity to transform the park once again — while avoiding competition — when Parton came knocking.

Dolly's 'Smoky Mountain Fairyland' dream

In a 1982 interview with Barbara Walters, Parton shared her “big dream” of opening a “mountain Disneyland… a Smoky Mountain fairyland” theme park in Pigeon Forge. Four years later, that dream became a reality, when Dollywood opened its doors to visitors.

“When it was the county fair, we’d come to town, and I used to think if I make it big, if I get rich like I was dreaming I might, that I’d love to do something special, to come back home and build a park of my own,” Parton explained to USA Today. Through her park, the singer told the industry trade publication IAAPA that she wanted to “provide jobs for the local people, my family, my neighbors and my friends to help the local community.”

'Dollyizing' Silver Dollar City, Tenn.

Dollywood features some thrilling rides, including the 21-foot-tall inverted roller coaster Wild Eagle, where park staff encourages visitors to be an eagle rather than a chicken. Speaking of... although Parton visits the park regularly, she has never ridden any of Dollywood's roller coasters, and it’s not just because she gets motion sickness. “I’m a little bit chicken. With all my hair I have so much to lose, like my wig or my shoes,” she told the The New York Times. “I don’t like to get messed up. I’m gonna have some handsome man mess it up, I don’t want some ride doing it.”

Other "chickens" who visit the park can soak up more of what they came for, which is usually Dolly. Stories about the icon’s life are sprinkled throughout the park, along with Parton’s music streaming in various areas. Plus, there’s a replica of the small cabin where Parton grew up and a decked-out tour bus she once used.

But look closely at Dollywood and you can see the bones of the previous Silver Dollar City and its sister Branson location. The parks have several similar rides, festivals and foods. Even Dollywood’s famed cinnamon bread, which many tourists believe was created from Parton’s own recipe, has “been a staple of Silver Dollar City for generations,” according to Dalton Fischer, spokesperson for the Missouri park. He explains that “those in the theme-park-sphere love to compare the two slightly different versions” and there is a debate over which is better.

Helping her hometown

Even though Parton didn’t build an amusement park herself, the investment in her hometown paid off. The first year the park opened as Dollywood it saw a 75% increase over the previous year’s attendance, and it continues to draw about a million more visitors a year than Silver Dollar City, despite the parks being so similar. Today, Dollywood is Tennessee’s most-visited ticketed tourist attraction.

Despite this success, the lore that Parton singlehandedly revitalized Pigeon Forge is not exactly true. The Smoky Mountains are a far bigger draw. Pigeon Forge hosts about 10 million visitors a year. Only about 3 million of them visit Dollywood. “Our research tells us that the Great Smoky Mountains are the top reason folks come,” says Trish McGee, a spokesperson for Pigeon Forge. She adds that while the town as a tourist destination is “fairly young,” visitors had been coming to the area for decades before Dollywood opened.

Nevertheless, McGee says that “it is undeniable” that Dollywood’s opening was a “turning point” in establishing Pigeon Forge as a “destination.” The economic data backs up that Dollywood has created more than 23,000 jobs for the region and pumped millions of dollars into the economy.

Even if the myth of Dollywood is different from the reality, the people who live in the Great Smoky Mountains appreciate all that Parton has done. Says McGee, “We’re so very proud that Dolly, our hometown girl, decided to create Dollywood to celebrate all that the Great Smoky Mountains mean to her.”