Inside the tiny two-room cabin Dolly Parton never forgot after escaping poverty and becoming a global icon

The country legend grew up with her parents and 11 siblings in a tiny cabin in Locust Ridge, tucked into the Great Smoky Mountains near Sevierville. There was a kitchen and just one bedroom for a family of 14. There was no electricity and no running water, and the family reportedly caught fireflies in jars to provide light at night. Privacy was almost nonexistent. A partial wall helped separate the kitchen from the sleeping area, a washing basin stood between the two spaces and several beds were squeezed together inside the bedroom. Yet when Parton spoke about those years, poverty was never the only thing she remembered. The little cabin represented family, music and the mountains that helped shape the woman she eventually became. Her life eventually became almost impossibly different.