Johnny Cash Boyhood Home
This was the boyhood home of music legend Johnny Cash that inspired such hits as "Five Feet High and Rising" and "Pickin' Time." Ray and Carrie Cash were among the 500 colonist families recruited from all over Arkansas to the historic Dyess Colony. They moved to Dyess in March 1935 with their five children, including Roy, 13; Louise, 11; Jack, 5; J. R. (later Johnny), 3; and Reba, 1. Two additional children, Joanne and Tommy, were born in Dyess. Johnny Cash lived in Dyess until he graduated from high school in 1950. The Cash home is one of the few houses remaining in the former New Deal-era colony and is part of the Historic Dyess Colony Museum, an Arkansas State University Heritage Site. The house has been restored and furnished as it appeared when the Cash family lived there.
Much of the famous singer/songwriter’s inspiration came directly from the fields and his upbringing in Dyess Colony. He was one of America’s most influential musicians with a career that spread across gospel, country and western, rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll genres and earned him induction into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, Songwriters, Rockabilly, and Arkansas Entertainers Halls of Fame. A stop on the Arkansas Delta Music Trail: Sounds from the Soil and Soul and an official Interpretive Center for the Great River Road National Scenic Byway.