New Johnny Cash Museum Set To Open In Nashville in 2012

A new museum dedicated to the life of Johnny Cash is set to open in Nashville later this year. The new museum will be operated by Bill Miller, a collector of Johnny Cash memorabilia, and will contain items donated by Cash’s family as well as items from The House of Cash, the Johnny Cash museum in Henderson, Tennessee which closed in 1999 after a damaging flood; the former museum features prominently in the video for Cash’s single “Hurt.” The new museum will be located in the city's tourist-oriented Lower Broadway section.

When asked about Miller’s collection, Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny Cash) said, “If anybody has the whole structure to put up a museum, he does. So I have a lot of trust in him and I think it’s great at this point. I think he’ll do something with dignity and class that’s historically important, not some kitschy thing. I’m very interested in seeing what he does.”

A project to preserve Cash’s childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas is also currently underway. The house will be restored to what it looked like when Cash was a child in the 1930s and 1940s.