Dolly Parton Statue — Sevierville, Tennessee

A bronze statue of Dolly Parton sits on the lawn of the Sevier County Courthouse in Sevierville, Tennessee — the county seat of her home county, a short drive from the Locust Ridge community where she was born. The statue, unveiled in 1987, depicts her seated with a guitar, wearing a flower in her hair, smiling the smile that has been one of American entertainment's most recognisable features for fifty years. Sevierville was the nearest town to Parton's rural upbringing and the courthouse lawn, in the centre of town, was chosen as the most visible and accessible location for a monument to the region's most famous daughter.

Parton's investment in her home region goes well beyond the statue: Dollywood, the theme park she co-owns in nearby Pigeon Forge, employs thousands of people and draws millions of visitors annually, making it one of the most successful music-themed attractions in the world. The Dollywood Foundation's Imagination Library, which provides free books to children from birth through kindergarten, has distributed over 200 million books in multiple countries. Her donation to Vanderbilt University that helped fund the Moderna COVID vaccine was quietly made and only revealed when she declined a statue in Nashville in 2021, saying she hadn't earned one yet.

The Sevierville courthouse statue is a regular stop on Great Smoky Mountains tourist itineraries and is surrounded by signage and context about Parton's life and career. The town leans fully into its connection to her. The surrounding Sevier County landscape — the mountains, the farms, the roadside churches — is the landscape she has sung about her entire life.