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Last updated on Tuesday, December 29, 2015
(NASHVILLE) - Scott Wayman, owner of the Little Nashville Opry, hopes to bring country music back to Brown County in 2016.
According to the Herald Times, Wayman got state approval to install a sewage treatment plant on the Ind. 46 site, just west of Nashville.
The property where the Opry burned down in a 2009 arson fire sits in a flood plain, so a septic system cannot be built. Plans to attach the proposed building to Nashville's sewer system were complicated and would have cost too much.
Wayman bought the four-acre property at a 2012 county tax sale for $57,600. He was the lone bidder, intent on returning the Opry to its days of glory when country music stars such as Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash played from the small and quaint stage at a venue built in the 1960s from an old horse barn.
Wayman, whose family owns Martinsville's Wayman's Furniture, grew up going to Opry shows with his parents. As an adult and radio personality for WCBK, he sometimes introduced the acts appearing at the venue.
His plan is to rebuild the Opry closer to the highway, of dark brown wood with Brown County stone and a green metal roof and will be very similar to the inside of the old Opry before the fire. The building will seat 2,000, and he hopes to offer three or four shows every weekend. Wayman says The Oak Ridge Boys have asked to do the first show.
He also plans to hire a cook to serve homemade meals for the entertainers.
Opry founder Esther Hamilton, who recently died, would cook vats of food at her Morgantown home and deliver it to the Opry to feed the stars. Entertainers once voted it the second-best food on the circuit.
Wayman was negotiating with Hamilton to buy the Opry when the September 19, 2009, fire broke out after a Saturday night show. Hamilton's companion and Opry manager, James Bowyer, was charged with arson but found not guilty of starting the fire.
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