The Man in Black Gets a New Honor

The Man in Black's boyhood home has been added to the National Register of Historic Places, though the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette notes that it took two tries to get it there. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program announced Friday that the home in Dyess where country music icon Johnny Cash lived from age 3 through high school has been added to the register. The nomination's first failed attempt focused on the structure's architectural significance rather than its connection to Cash.

The five-room farmhouse was built in 1934 as part of the Dyess Resettlement Colony by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, reports the AP. The Democrat-Gazette reports that the house is owned by Arkansas State University, which spent $575,000 to buy, restore, furnish, and landscape the property. "When we grew up, it was second nature that we wouldn't live in Dyess when we were grown," Cash once said. "It was the aim of every person to get a better job. But if I hadn't grown up there, I wouldn't be what I am now. It was the foundation for what I became." Cash died in 2003 at age 71.

(More Johnny Cash stories.)