Tucked into a nondescript archway at Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort is an unreleased Dolly Parton song written to be her last.
Located in the lower-level lobby, a chestnut “Dream Box” displayed in a glass case contains a recording of “My Place In History,” a song Parton wrote to be released on her 100th birthday in 2046.
“I don’t know if I want to live to be 100 or not. But you never know,” Parton wrote in her 2020 book, “Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics.” “I might, and if I do, I’m going to be at that opening.”
Parton died Tuesday at the age of 80.
Parton wrote “My Place In History” in 2015, the year that she opened the DreamMore Resort in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. She recorded the song on a CD and included a CD player in the chestnut box as well.
“There’s no telling what music is going to be by then,” Parton wrote in her book. “Hopefully, it will play and the whole thing ain’t rotted.”
The glass case also features a piece of wood from the front porch of Parton’s childhood home in Sevierville, Tennessee, where she grew up singing with her 11 siblings.
The display is one of many tributes to Parton throughout the DreamMore Resort, including a hallway lined with images of her album covers and her bedazzled instruments hanging in the lobby.
Parton’s music career spanned seven decades, having released her first No. 1 country album in 1977. She holds the Guinness World Record as the woman with the longest span of No. 1 hits on the US Top Country Albums chart, at 46 years and 197 days. In September 2025, she announced the postponement of her Las Vegas residency scheduled for that December due to “health challenges.”
Editor’s note: This story was originally published in July 2022 and updated in August 2026.
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