Near the entrance of The Pines Downtown, local kids play snookball, an odd combination of soccer and pool. They try their best to keep the ball from bouncing off the building’s windows. Off to one side, visitors eat and lounge on couches and wood-backed chairs while playing old school board games and watching TV.
In the back, adults can grab a drink at the bar while other patrons roll balls down the lanes of duckpin bowling - a slightly-awkward but fun middle-child to classic bowling and skee-ball. Up top sits a loft where wedding rehearsal guests can make a toast to the bride and groom to-be.
“What we try to do is create just a really good vibe that people want to come hang out, eat a little bit, drink a little bit, hang out with their friends and just have a good time,” said Christine Granduke, general manager at The Pines.
But it wasn’t always a place for local hangouts and birthday parties. In 1944, the building now known as The Pines Downtown opened as The Pines Theater. The 700-seat theater ran Western films by day and showcased local music talent by night.
It also gave a start to a country music icon.
Seventy years ago, a 10-year-old-Dolly Parton stepped on stage for her first paid gig as an aspiring artist.
“She was invited to come back the following week and performed the first time for pay, which began her professional career right there in Sevierville at The Pines Theater when she was 10 years old,” said Carroll McMahan, longtime Sevier County historian. “And that led to everything.”
From that stage, Parton ascended higher in her rise to stardom. She won 11 Grammy Awards, received two Academy Award nominations, opened her own amusement park, gave away millions of dollars in her charitable efforts and cemented herself as both a local and global icon.
The Pines is just one of many Sevierville sites tied to Parton’s heritage. Following her death in late August, the city is set on honoring her history and will debut a new walking tour in October showcasing several significant downtown locations to its hometown hero.
Preserving The Pines
While Parton found global success in the years after that first show, The Pines Theater wasn’t so lucky.
The theater closed in 1959, three years after Parton’s childhood gig. As Parton’s career flourished, the building reopened its doors multiple times. It survived many vendors over the years including a thrift mall and a roller rink, but its most popular iteration came as the theater, Granduke said.
Though it closed early in her career, Parton kept fond memories of the theater throughout her life. On a typical Sevierville Saturday evening, Cas Walker, a Knoxville grocer and local television host, hosted “The Cas Walker Jamboree” at The Pines. During intermissions, Walker welcomed cast and audience members to climb a 10-foot greased pole. Anyone bold enough to reach the top took home $100.
“I, as a little girl being quick and sturdy, got a little sand and gravel on me outside and climbed up the greasy pole and I won the prize,” Parton once said in an interview, according to The Pines website. “Some thought it was rigged because I was on the show and Mr. Walker said ‘How in the hell did we rig the greasy pole? She won the money fair and square and she did it.’”
In 1995, Parton paid homage to the old building by creating a replica of The Pines Theater in Dollywood’s “Jukebox Junction.” The original Pines marquee resides in the park today.
A company named Compass Ventures purchased the original building in 2022 and reopened it as The Pines Downtown in effort to return to its former glory.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am to have the Pines Theater back up and running,” Parton said in 2022. “It is a cherished piece of my childhood … Needless to say I have so many precious and fond memories. Also as an added bonus, I got to see a movie before they got ready to set up the show for Saturday nights and that was very special as we never got to go to the movies. So again, so happy to see the Pines back.”
While the theater projector and greasy pole are long gone, The Pines Downtown remains a tribute to Parton’s history and legacy - even more so after her death at 80-years-old.
In the days that followed Parton’s death on Aug. 25, thousands flocked to a statue of Parton in downtown to pay respects.
Visitors stopped by The Pines and other businesses to discover Parton’s hometown history. As flowers and photographs flooded Sevierville’s courthouse lawn, Granduke said a somber mood persisted through the area, but that sadness quickly turned to appreciation as more memorials and window murals popped up around the city.
The Pines toasted Parton’s life and legacy by offering Sparkling Cosmos cocktails with proceeds benefiting Dolly’s Imagination Library.
“It was just kind of one of those things that was always around and her presence and her generosity and her care for the community as a whole, I think, that’s what everybody was appreciating and trying to pay tribute to,” Granduke said. “It was just an overwhelming sense of love for somebody that was amazing.”
Honoring Parton’s legacy
During her life, Parton altered the landscape of her home, Sevier County. McMahan saw it first hand.
“Any chance she had to sing, she sang,” said McMahan, who was a freshman at Sevier County High School when Parton was a senior. “She sang to us, and we really weren’t that much into country music, we were all about The Beatles and Paul Revere & the Raiders’ and the rock groups of the day. But everyone always had a lot of respect for Dolly because of her determination.”
Despite Parton’s well-documented poverty in her youth, McMahan said she was never bitter, and loved her hometown until the day she died.
“I think the part, the component we could never have realized when she started quote ‘making it’ was that she would give so much to us,” McMahan said.
And give, she did.
Her Imagination Library has gifted over 300 million books to children worldwide, according to its website. In 2016, Parton sent $12.5 million directly to families displaced by wildfires in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.
As Parton donated funds both publicly and privately throughout her career, no exact monetary total exists, though the estimated number is in the tens of millions. Beyond that, her business ventures and tourist attractions reshaped the entire outlook of her home county.
Over time, as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park helped Gatlinburg grow and Dollywood helped Pigeon Forge expand, those towns began to outshine Sevierville, McMahan said. He said there’s no real competition between the three cities for tourists, but what sets Sevierville apart is its preserved history downtown.
In the aftermath of Parton’s death, it’s that history that the city is leaning on.
In late October, the city will debut a new self-guided walking tour honoring Parton’s history. The tour, “In Dolly’s Footsteps,” will walk locals and tourists around Sevierville’s downtown square and showcase several locations of significance to Parton.
Points of interest include but are not limited to:
• Red’s Café, where Parton ate her first hamburger as a child. The original business closed, but lives on with a spiritual successor, Red’s Soda Fountain and Ice Cream.
• Parton’s statue, which was unveiled on the courthouse’s front lawn in 1987. The bronze sculpture shows Parton holding her guitar and was crafted by nationally-known local artist Jim Gray. It’s visited by thousands each year and Parton ranked the work as one of her most-prized recognitions.
• Kilpatrick’s Drug Store, which was a pharmacy with a food counter that Parton frequented in high school. It was operated by the same family that now runs The Apple Barn Cider Mill & General Store.
• The Pines Theater, which reopened as The Pines Downtown in 2022.
(See a complete list of stops via WBIR.)
Each location will be marked with a granite inlay on the sidewalk and bronze footsteps in the likeness of her signature high-heels.
“If everybody knows Dolly, she wasn’t going to go anywhere if it wasn’t in her five-inch stiletto heels, so it’s neat to have the bronze inlays of that,” said Luke Fall, communications assistant for the Sevierville Conventions & Visitors Bureau.
Visitors can scan QR codes featuring articles and videos explaining the history of the businesses and their ties to Parton’s early childhood.
Sevierville may never be able to match Parton’s revered ambition or her giving heart, but the city will always love her as she loved it.
“Downtown especially has become a really big love letter to her,” Fall said. “It’s meant so much to us who call it home because a lot of people reach stardom, they reach fame, they’re kinda itching to get away where they came from, but Dolly never forgot where she was from and we’re forever grateful for that.”
Brett Walker is a student journalist at Middle Tennessee State University. This story was reported in partnership with the MTSU Seigenthaler News Service.
