RESTORATION
WE WORKED WITH THE CASH FAMILY ON THE FURNITURE AND PICTURES. WE WANT IT TO LOOK AS THOUGH THEY’VE JUST WALKED OUT OF THE DOOR TO GO TO CHURCH
wanted to restore it to what it was like when he’d lived there. The problem was that the house was in private ownership and the owner didn’t want to sell. But three years ago he began talking with us at Arkansas State University and we were able to acquire it.
What will the visitor experience be? The administration building will house a museum with exhibits detailing the Dyess colony and what it was about. It’ll show the life of a typical colonist fam- ily, using the Johnny Cash family as an example, and how growing up in Dyess impacted Johnny Cash and his music. Songs like Five F
eet High and Rising
are about the 1937 fl ood in the Dyess area, while Picking Time is based on his experience in the fi elds. All of his music that focuses on family values and grow- ing up poor will be refl ected in exhibits. The theatre building will become a
visitor centre. Movies and orientation fi lms will be shown and we can hold special events. The house will be furnished exactly as it looked when the Cash family lived there. We’re focusing on the period from 1935, when they moved in, to 1950 when Johnny left to go into service. In time we’ll reconstruct the farm-
stead buildings that used to be at the Cash home – the barn, smokehouse, outhouse and corncrib – and create a walking trail to connect the houses with the colony centre, which is a mile away. The project also involves acquiring additional land for visitor services, park- ing and rest rooms. It’s a massive plan and takes time to implement.
What work has been done so far? We acquired the administration building in 2010 and the Cash’s house in April 2011. We’ve completely restored the outside of the administration building and are now restoring the interior.
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Many of Cash’s songs are based on his experiences in the fi elds and growing up in a poor family
We’ve restored the Johnny Cash
house and are landscaping the exterior and furnishing the house. We have the original piano, which is a key piece of furniture as music was so important to the family, and a few smaller items. The original pieces will be displayed at the museum and we’ll put replicas in the house. The house is so small – less than 1,000sq ft (93sq m) – that with a lot of visitors it’ll be very diffi cult to protect any original furniture. We’ve worked with the Cash family, who described the furniture and pic- tures on the walls. We’ve made a virtual model of the house and the furnish- ings and forward photos to the family to critique. They’ll say: “Yes, that’s what it was like,” or: “No, that pot bellied stove was a little more oval,” or “The sofa was a darker blue than you have it.” When
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we’re fi nished, we want it to look as though the Cash family has just walked out of the door to go to church.
How will you protect the home? That’s going to be a major challenge because the house is so small. We’ll have to limit the number of people who are in there at a time. The tours will originate out of the administration building and there will be about 15 peo- ple in a group. It was built of wood that was milled in the area and is a solid house, which will wear well. It was never painted or decorated
inside, so the main thing we need to protect is the linoleum fl ooring, which two of the rooms still have from the 1930s. We’ll put something over those where people are walking, so they can see the fl ooring, but don’t wear it out.
AM 2 2013 ©Cybertrek 2013
PHOTO COURTESY OF JOANNE CASH YATES
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