The Grand Ole Opry House at 50: A legacy of making, extending history

March 16 marks a half-century for the 99-year-old Grand Ole Opry program on 2804 Opryland Drive, its sixth home since the show was initially broadcast as a barn dance in 1925.

Since its 1974 relocation, the Opry's vaunted membership has grown by nearly seven dozen acts. The Opry House venue has also outlived a legendary amusement park on its property that attracted almost 3 million visitors annually in the 1980s.

Moreover, it currently -- via an April 2022 partnership between the venue's current owners Opry Entertainment Group (OEG), NBC/Universal, and private-equity firm Atairos Group -- is part of country music's continued boom in an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Opry's executive producer, Dan Rogers, offered the following reflection to The Tennessean.

"How apropos that the word “House” is part of the nomenclature for the venue from which the Opry emanates. I’ve been lucky to be a part of the Opry House’s story in some way for half of its life, and the building truly does feel like home. Those of us who spend so much time here have survived a flood together, have looked out at empty pews for months during the COVID-19 pandemic and have said farewell to beloved Opry members in these halls while also marking countless highs along the way. I can’t imagine my life or the life of the Opry without the Opry House."

Steeped in history

The venue was once hosted in a declining downtown area at the Ryman Auditorium, before it's 1993 renovation, an antiquated venue lacking air conditioning.

The former Methodist Episcopalian church also had only one dressing room for men, while women changed in a re-fitted restroom. Notably, when presenting the Opry, performers waited to play in both hallways and the alley behind the building's south wall, where, as Willie Nelson once noted, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge was only 17 steps away.

Five decades ago, on Mar. 16, 1974, Roy Acuff, Jeannie Seely and President Richard Nixon were among the guests on the Opry's first edition at the 4,400-seat Grand Ole Opry House.

Nixon still stands as the only president ever to have performed on the Opry. He played “My Wild Irish Rose” and “God Bless America” on the Opry’s upright piano in addition to “Happy Birthday” in honor of First Lady Pat Nixon. President Nixon also received a yo-yo lesson from Acuff.

The Commander-in-Chief joked, “I’ll stay here and try to learn how to use the yo-yo; you go up and be President, Roy!”

The Opry House sits on a four-acre plot of the 120 acres of northeast Nashville's Pennington Bend area that the National Life and Accident Insurance Company purchased in 1969 from Rudy's Farm, a sausage company.

A 1969 Tennessean story notes that National Life and Accident Insurance subsidiary WSM, Inc.'s President Irving Waugh visited Houston's Astrodomain, home of the AstroWorld theme park and Astrodome sports stadium, to understand how to use the land best.

He decided that an amusement park adjacent to a new Grand Ole Opry House -- then only operational twice per week -- would be profitable.

Construction on the Grand Ole Opry House cost a rumored $15 million, took under two years and was completed in early 1974.

Famously, on Jan. 9, 1974, construction workers cut an 8-foot square of wood from a portion of the Ryman stage that was later carved into a six-foot circle installed at the front stage center at the new Opry House -- it has remained there ever since.

The Opry remains a rite of passage

Texas-born country performer Sunny Sweeney can just as easily recite her birthdate as she can recall her Grand Ole Opry debut date at the Opry House.

"Mar. 2, 2007," she proudly states.

She's played the Opry 65 more times since then.

"A dedicated venue that is able to both [encapsulate so much of the genre's history] but also push it forward is cool," Sweeney says.

The venue's Studio A is where "Hee Haw" was recorded in the 1970s and 1980s. It's also currently where stagewear worn by Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Marty Stuart, and Porter Wagoner (among many) to numerous photographs and various other pieces of country music's legendary iconography are located.

"In no other genre [does there remain] a 4,000-seat, state-of-the-art facility that showcases one style of music 250 times a year."

The 2010 flood

Thirty-six years in operation saw 47 members inducted into the Opry at Opryland's Opry House. Notably, too, the venue served as the host of the Country Music Association Awards from 1974 to 2004. As per usual, countless Opry episodes were broadcast on radio and television worldwide.

However, torrential Nashville rains on May 1, 2010, caused the Cumberland River to spill over its banks and flood the city. As a result, ten feet of water submerged the Grand Ole Opry House's stage, pews and floor.

"To see the Grand Ole Opry affected, that just really hit home for me, even more than having water in my house," stated 2005-inducted Opry member Dierks Bentley to NBC's Today.

Shockingly, though the Opry's stage was submerged in two feet of water, the Opry's legendary circle survived the flooding.

The Grand Ole Opry House's $20 million renovation was completed in Sept. 2010.

'Making and extending history'

Nashville native Chase Matthew debuted on the Grand Ole Opry on Mar. 14, 2023.

A year later, he's a member of the 2024 class of Opry's NextStage program, aimed at OEG developing talent through frequent Opry House appearances.

Matthew, 26, was born in 1997 when the Opryland amusement park closed.

As a child watching the Opry with his grandmother, he referred to the venue as "the big red barn on the TV" because of how the Opry House's staging presented the show with a barn-style backdrop.

For Matthew, calling the legendary "big red barn" a venue he regularly frequents is noteworthy.

"Every time [I'm at the Opry House], it's important that I'm both making and extending history."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Opry turns 50 with look back at Nixon, 'Hee Haw', country music legacy