Country music legend Loretta Lynn dead at 90
'Coal Miner's Daughter' singer sold tens of millions of albums
Country music legend Loretta Lynn, who was 90, died in her sleep on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022, at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.
One unique way that Lynn ensured her legacy would survive her is the Loretta Lynn Ranch, her former home.
Lynn and her family lived in the former Hurricane Mills Plantation property for about 30 years.
The Loretta Lynn Ranch is open to the public, for tours and overnight stays.
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Visitors can opt to camp on-site in a tent, cabin or RV.
The Loretta Lynn Ranch is home not only to the main historic plantation house — it's also a recreation of the home that Lynn lived in as a child in Butcher Holler, Kentucky.
In addition, it houses the Coal Miner’s Daughter Museum, a museum of Native American artifacts, a replica coal mine and Loretta’s Fan & Doll Museum.
American country music singer-songwriter Lorreta Lynn poses for a portrait in front of her fireplace in 1997 in Nashville, Tennessee. Lynn died at age 90 on Oct. 4, 2022. (Ron Davis/Getty Images)
Lane Wommack, a realtor with Benchmark Realty, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, said that the "breathtaking property" is where Lynn "built her dream home with her husband, Doo."
"As Dolly Parton has provided so much for locals and tourists with Dollywood, Loretta Lynn’s ranch provides something for everyone," Wommack said via email to Fox News Digital.
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"People visit to enjoy and appreciate nature, to watch barrel racing, wagon racing and dirt bike racing, and of course, [to attend] music concerts," he added.
"Right off the interstate there is Loretta Lynn’s gift shop and kitchen, serving the good ol’ southern food we all grew up on," he said.
"This special place has been an iconic stop traveling along interstate 40 for my entire life," he added.
Lynn herself said that she spent "some of her happiest days" in the small home in Butcher Holler.
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She had the home recreated at the Loretta Lynn Ranch so that fans could see how she was raised, as she shared during a 2003 Travel Channel program titled "Loretta Lynn’s Haunted Plantation."
"Loretta Lynn was the very essence of country music, sprung from the heart of rural America."
Her father purchased the original home for $600, she said on the program, which was a risky investment for the family at the time.
"Back then it looked so big," she said.
Before the move, Lynn, her parents and her seven siblings all lived in a one-room cabin.
Former President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Loretta Lynn in the East Room at the White House on Nov. 20, 2013, in Washington, D.C. Lynn started out in Butcher Holler, Tennessee, sharing a one-room cabin with her parents and seven siblings. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
At the Butcher Holler home, Lynn said that her family had a battery-operated radio and that she would save the batteries to listen to the Grand Ole Opry program each Saturday.
Lynn would become a member of the Grand Ole Opry herself in 1962 at age 30, the Opry website notes.
Four years later, in 1966, she and her husband Doolittle "Mooney" Lynn would move into what would become the Loretta Lynn Ranch.
For Lynn, the ranch was love at first sight.
Loretta Lynn performs during the 2011 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on June 11, 2011, in Manchester, Tennessee. (Erika Goldring/WireImage)
"I said, ‘I want that house.’ At the time, we didn’t know the town come with it," she said on the Travel Channel program.
(The property she bought included the whole town.)
"He’s protecting me. He knows that I took care of him. I wouldn’t let nothing happen to that house over there, not as long as I’m living."
"Doo" embarked on many renovations to the home prior to moving in, but the front of the house was kept the same.
The property came with more than just the town of Hurricane Mills, according to the Lynn family; it came with ghosts, as was revealed on the Travel Channel program.
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"You know, the families that owned this place up here, Hurricane Mills, they passed away, and they’re over in the graveyard there," said Lynn on the program.
Country singer Loretta Lynn poses for a portrait with her family in 1955 in Butcher Holler, Kentucky. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
"But they’re still here with me, and it doesn’t bother me at all," she added. "They’re happy that I’m taking care of the place."
Loretta Lynn believed that she had paranormal skills. "She has been frank about her psychic abilities and the numerous ghostly encounters she's experienced," online publication Wide Open Country noted.
(Lynn’s song "This Haunted House" was not written about the Loretta Lynn Ranch: it was about the death of her friend Patsy Cline, the Travel Channel noted.)
"She paved the way for so many female country artists and storytellers to unapologetically sing their truth — an impact that lives on."
The iconic property was first established in 1814. During the Civil War, there was a small battle near the historic house in 1863, the channel noted.
Exact details are unknown, but Lynn said during the Travel Channel special that 19 soldiers were killed. She also reported finding cannonballs fired by Confederate soldiers on the property.
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Lynn indicated that a "church house" near the property was used as a makeshift hospital to treat wounded soldiers from different battles.
About 30 years after the end of the Civil War, James T. Anderson bought the property — and it remained in the Anderson family into the 20th century, according to the Travel Channel special.
American country music singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn posing for a portrait in her kitchen in 1997. "I want that house," Lynn reportedly told her husband, Doo. (Ron Davis/Getty Images)
Anderson reportedly made many improvements to the area, including damming the river and installing the first electric light in the county.
"Anderson Cemetery," the final resting place of many members of the Anderson family, is located near the historic plantation home.
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Lynn believed that James, or Old Man Anderson, as she called him on the Travel Channel, never entirely left the property. Staff have reported sightings of an old man resembling Anderson who would mysteriously vanish.
"He’s protecting me. He knows that I took care of him. I wouldn’t let nothing happen to that house over there, not as long as I’m living," said Lynn. "I don’t think the kids would either, so I don’t think Mr. Anderson has anything to worry about."
Admiration and love for Loretta Lynn
Loved ones, friends and fans expressed their admiration and love for the country music legend upon learning the news of her passing.
Trisha Yearwood (left) presents the Cracker Barrels Country Legend Award to Loretta Lynn (right) at the Loretta Lynn Ranch on Sept. 13, 2019 in Nashville. (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images for Cracker Barrel)
Lynn was "the very essence of country music, sprung from the heart of rural America, who wrote and sang knowingly about the themes of family, love and endurance in the face of bleakest hardship," Alanna Nash, journalist and author of the book, "Behind Closed Doors: Talking with the Legends of Country Music," told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
Nash praised Lynn as someone who "made a feisty place center stage for all women."
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"Her legacy, both as an icon and as an artist, cannot be overstated and will never dim," said Nash.
"Loretta Lynn was and always will be a cornerstone of country music," Nashville singer-songwriters Janey Leigh Morris and Ernest Morris said in comments to Fox News Digital.
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"She paved the way for so many female country artists and storytellers to unapologetically sing their truth — an impact that lives on and that, as songwriters, we all hope to leave in our wake."
Fox News Digital's Maureen Mackey contributed to this article.
