Born Loretta Webb · Butcher Holler, Kentucky · 14 April 1932

Loretta Lynn

In Custer, Washington, she won a canning contest. Here is her life put up the same way: labelled, sealed, and still there to visit.

1932Butcher Holler
1950Custer
1957Delta Grange · $5
1959The Chicken Coop
Feb 19606000 Sunset
Sept 1960The Ryman
1966Hurricane Mills
1969Bradley’s Barn
1988Hall of Fame

A grey painted boulder by a road with lettering pointing the way to Butcher Holler — A painted rock points the way up to Butcher Holler. Dennis Adams (National Archives) · Public domain

Johnson County, Kentucky · 1932 to 1948

A one-room cabin.
A coal camp hollow.

She was born Loretta Webb on 14 April 1932 in a one-room log cabin in Butcher Holler, the second of eight children. Her father was a coal miner. Most people in the hollow worked in the nearby Van Lear coal mines when she was a girl.

A small weathered wooden cabin with a porch among green trees — The Webb homeplace in Butcher Holler, June 2014. Nicolai Edgar Andersen · CC BY-SA 4.0

The Butcher Holler homeplace · Butcher Hollow Road, Van Lear, Kentucky

The cabin is open to the public, and the tours start at Webb’s store down the road.

From the store, the homeplace is two miles on along Millers Creek Road and up Butcher Holler.

Tours start at Webb’s store on Millers Creek Road: ring 606-789-3397 for times before you drive out. The cabin is two miles further on, up the hollow.

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Webb’s store, Van Lear

The Butcher Holler homeplace

Van Lear, Kentucky · Store open daily · ring 606-789-3397

Tours of the cabin she was born in start at her family’s store on Millers Creek Road; the cabin is two miles up the hollow.

Plan a visit

An old-fashioned country store by the roadside in a wooded valley — A roadside country store in Van Lear. Dennis Adams (National Archives) · Public domain

Webb’s store (the Mine No. 5 Store) · Millers Creek Road, Van Lear, Kentucky

The Consolidated Coal Company built this two-storey wooden store in 1918. It joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

It was called the Number Five store after a mine nearby. It is more than a hundred years old and owned by Loretta’s family.

It sells MoonPies, RC Cola, sandwiches and Loretta Lynn keepsakes, and appears in the film Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Open Monday to Saturday 10am–5pm, Sunday noon–5pm. From Paintsville take KY 321 south for five miles, turn left on KY 1107, right on KY 302, then left on Millers Creek Road: the store is on the right.

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A modern brick museum building with a covered entrance — The U.S. 23 Country Music Highway Museum in Paintsville, 2010. J654567 · CC BY-SA 3.0

The U.S. 23 Country Music Highway Museum · 120 Stave Branch Road, Paintsville, Kentucky

The museum opened in April 2005.

Loretta Lynn is one of the singers from along US 23 it features, with Dwight Yoakam, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Patty Loveless, Tom T. Hall and the Judds.

Ring ahead for hours. Front Porch Pickin’, live bluegrass and mountain storytelling, runs every Thursday from 7 to 9pm, $5 a head.

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A black-and-white family photograph of the Webb brothers and sisters standing in a row — The Webb family. Loretta is second from the right; her sister Crystal is fourth from the left. Crystalgaylestaff (Commons uploader) · CC0

A pie social · she is fifteen

Bake a pie for the social.

The pies go to whoever bids highest.

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Whatcom County, Washington · 1950 to 1960

A $17 guitar, a canning prize,
and five dollars at the Grange.

In 1950 she and Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn moved from Butcher Hollow to Custer, where he hoped to find logging work.

Turn a tag over.

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A quiet small-town main street with low buildings and trees — Custer’s Main Street, looking east from old US 99, 2006. Publichall · CC BY-SA 4.0

Custer, Washington · Custer, Whatcom County, Washington

In 1957 she sang a song or two with the Pen Brothers’ Westerners at the Delta Grange Hall, was paid $5, and was asked back for another $5.

Later she played Bill’s Tavern in Blaine with her own band, the Trail Blazers.

A small farm town near the Canadian border, just off Interstate 5. The Lynns’ house was private and is not named here; the photograph is Main Street.

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Over the border · 1959

Heard in a chicken coop.

A plaque on a post beside a riverside path — The plaque by the Fraser River in Vancouver that marks where the Chicken Coop dance hall stood. Seivadle · CC BY-SA 4.0

The Chicken Coop plaque, Vancouver · East Kent Avenue South, by the Fraser River, Vancouver

The plaque says record men from Zero, a small Vancouver label, heard her in 1959 at a backyard jam session in the 2500 block of East Kent Avenue. The gathering was held in a big chicken coop that its owners, Mac McGregor and Irene Loranger, had turned into a dance hall.

A local promoter, Johnny “Zapp” Zaplotynsky, had invited her over the border from Custer. Zero’s president, Don Grashey, and his partner Chuck Williams thought she had something. By the summer of 1960 her first single was climbing the charts.

The plaque is fixed to a boulder by the riverside, in the 2500 block of East Kent Avenue South. Free, at any hour.

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Rows of curved wooden pews rising to a horseshoe balcony, seen from the stage — The Ryman from its stage, looking up to the balcony: a Historic American Buildings Survey photograph. Historic American Buildings Survey · Public domain

Hollywood to Nashville · 1960

Four songs in February.
The Opry in September.

A low studio building on Sunset Boulevard with a plain facade — 6000 Sunset Boulevard, once Western Recorders, now EastWest Studios, 2019. Blz 2049 · CC0

6000 Sunset Boulevard (Western Recorders)

In February 1960 Zero signed her and sent her to Los Angeles to cut four songs. Northwest Music Archives names the studio as Western Recorders, with Roy Lanham on guitar, Speedy West on steel, Harold Hensley on fiddle, Al Williams on bass and Muddy Berry on drums.

The building had been named Western Recorders in 1957. Bill Putnam bought it in 1961, and it has been EastWest Studios since 2005.

Now EastWest Studios, a working studio and not open to visitors: see it from Sunset Boulevard.

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1961 to 1962

Patsy Cline takes her side.

She dedicates I Fall to Pieces on the radio to Patsy Cline, who is in hospital; Cline sends for her, helps with rent and clothes, and stands up for her at the Opry. The Opry made her a member on 25 September 1962, two years after her debut.

Patsy Cline’s own World: Winchester, the Quonset Hut and her pennies →

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Ryman Auditorium

Ryman Auditorium tour

Nashville · Daily 9am–4pm · self-guided $25 + tax

Walk the Opry’s home of 1943 to 1974, where she first sang on the Opry in September 1960.

Book a tour

1932 to 1988 · one jar to a place

Put up the jars.
Press each lid down.

She took a prize for canning in Custer. Seal her life the same way, one jar at a time, until the shelf is full.

Nine empty jars.

Mount Juliet, Tennessee · 1 October 1969

Coal Miner’s Daughter,
cut in a horse barn.

Owen Bradley bought an old horse barn in Mount Juliet and made it a studio so his son, Jerry, could learn to make records. She recorded Coal Miner’s Daughter there on 1 October 1969, with Bradley producing. It went to number 1 on Billboard’s country chart.

A working family studio east of Nashville, not open to visitors and not mapped here. The photograph is Owen Bradley’s office from the barn, shown at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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A wood-panelled office with a desk, chair and framed records on the walls, shown in a museum — Owen Bradley’s office from Bradley’s Barn, rebuilt inside the Country Music Hall of Fame, 2018. e Kat · CC0

Loretta Lynn in 1975, long dark hair, talking to an interviewer — Loretta Lynn interviewed for CBS News, March 1975. CBS Television · Public domain

8000 Highway 13 South, Hurricane Mills · from 1966

A whole small town.
And a second cabin.

A black-and-white photograph of a wooden mill building by a creek — A mill at Hurricane Mills, photographed by the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1940. Tennessee Valley Authority · Public domain

She and Mooney found the property in 1966, looking for a quiet place to raise their family. It came with a 19th-century house, a grist mill and the small town of Hurricane Mills.

Today it holds the Coal Miner’s Daughter Museum, her historic home, campgrounds and cabins, and concerts, festivals and trail rides.

Ring 931-296-7700. Guided tours 9.30am–4pm; the tours, museum and shops close on Mondays and Tuesdays, and hours can change without notice. The guided tour is $20, the museum $20, or both for $35; children 10 and under go free.

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Loretta Lynn’s Ranch

Loretta Lynn’s Ranch tours

Hurricane Mills, Tennessee · $20 tour or museum · $35 both · closed Mon and Tue

The guided tour takes in her historic home and the Butcher Holler replica; the Coal Miner’s Daughter Museum is separate.

Book a tour

Loretta Lynn’s Ranch

Cabins on Loretta Lynn’s Ranch

Hurricane Mills, Tennessee · Cabins from $105 a night · bunk house from $200

A-frame log cabins and Kozy cabins sleeping four, Boone Hill cabins, and a bunk house for eight, on the ranch itself. Pictured: the ranch road.

Book a cabin

The original · Butcher Holler, Kentucky

She was born Loretta Webb on 14 April 1932 in a one-room log cabin in Butcher Holler, the second of eight children.

Tours start at Webb’s store on Millers Creek Road: ring 606-789-3397 for times before you drive out. The cabin is two miles further on, up the hollow.

A wooden cabin on a wooded hillside with a porch along its front — The Kentucky original, which the ranch’s replica copies. Dennis Adams, Federal Highway Administration · Public domain

The replica · Hurricane Mills, Tennessee

The ranch’s guided tour goes through a replica of her Butcher Holler home, as well as her historic home.

Part of the ranch’s guided tour, so not mapped on its own. The photograph is the original cabin in Kentucky, which it copies.

Two cabins, one behind the other. Which is which?

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Where it is now

9 places you can visit, in eastern Kentucky, Washington, Vancouver, Hollywood, Nashville and Hurricane Mills. Bradley’s Barn is a working family studio and the replica sits inside the ranch tour, so neither has a pin of its own. The Lynns’ house in Custer was private and is left out.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Tours start at Webb’s store on Millers Creek Road: ring 606-789-3397 for times before you drive out. The cabin is two miles further on, up the hollow.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Open Monday to Saturday 10am–5pm, Sunday noon–5pm. From Paintsville take KY 321 south for five miles, turn left on KY 1107, right on KY 302, then left on Millers Creek Road: the store is on the right.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Ring ahead for hours. Front Porch Pickin’, live bluegrass and mountain storytelling, runs every Thursday from 7 to 9pm, $5 a head.

The Webb homeplace in Butcher Holler, June 2014. Nicolai Edgar Andersen · CC BY-SA 4.0
Butcher Hollow Road, Van Lear, Kentucky
The Butcher Holler homeplace
She was born Loretta Webb on 14 April 1932 in a one-room log cabin in Butcher Holler, the second of eight children.
Tours start at Webb’s store on Millers Creek Road: ring 606-789-3397 for times before you drive out. The cabin is two miles further on, up the hollow.
Jar labels
A roadside country store in Van Lear. Dennis Adams (National Archives) · Public domain
Millers Creek Road, Van Lear, Kentucky
Webb’s store (the Mine No. 5 Store)
The Consolidated Coal Company built this two-storey wooden store in 1918. It joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
Open Monday to Saturday 10am–5pm, Sunday noon–5pm. From Paintsville take KY 321 south for five miles, turn left on KY 1107, right on KY 302, then left on Millers Creek Road: the store is on the right.
Jar labels
The U.S. 23 Country Music Highway Museum in Paintsville, 2010. J654567 · CC BY-SA 3.0
120 Stave Branch Road, Paintsville, Kentucky
The U.S. 23 Country Music Highway Museum
The museum opened in April 2005.
Ring ahead for hours. Front Porch Pickin’, live bluegrass and mountain storytelling, runs every Thursday from 7 to 9pm, $5 a head.
Jar labels

Stay

Sleep on the ranch.

Cabins, a bunk house and campgrounds at Hurricane Mills.

Loretta Lynn’s Ranch

Cabins on Loretta Lynn’s Ranch

Hurricane Mills, Tennessee · Cabins from $105 a night · bunk house from $200

A-frame log cabins and Kozy cabins sleeping four, Boone Hill cabins, and a bunk house for eight, on the ranch itself. Pictured: the ranch road.

Book a cabin

Loretta Lynn’s Ranch

The ranch campgrounds

Hurricane Mills, Tennessee · Tents from $25 · RV from $40 a night, plus tax

Full-hookup pull-through sites on Stagecoach Hill and water-and-electric sites in the Lower Campground, where tents go too. The Lower Campground closes from November to April.

Plan a stay

Go there