Dyess Colony was a federal resettlement project: 500 nearly identical five-room houses handed to destitute farm families with twenty acres each and a barn. The Cash family arrived in March 1935 by truck, in the rain.
The house had no electricity for years. The family worked the cotton, flooded out in 1937, and listened to the radio in the front room, which is where a child heard the gospel and country music that became a voice.
Restored in 2014 using the family's memories as the source document — paint colors, furniture placement, where the radio sat.
Memories attached to this place
“Everyone's house was the same house. You knew whose you were in by the smell of the kitchen.”
“The radio was the only thing in the front room that wasn't work.”
“We picked from can't-see to can't-see and sang the whole row.”
Timeline
- 1934Dyess Colony founded for 500 displaced farm families.
- 1935The Cash family moves into house #266.
- 1937The Mississippi floods reach the colony.
- 2014House restored and opened to visitors.
Identical government houses produced entirely un-identical lives. The difference is only ever in the stories.
