Dollywood is located in the Smoky Mountains community of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, close to her birthplace in Sevier County. When the park first opened 1986, her financial advisers strongly discouraged her from investing in it, but Dolly disagreed. "I said, 'Well, I'm gonna do it anyway, because I know that it's the right thing to do in my gut,'" she explained.

The expansion is estimated to cost $300 million and will take ten years, but it will also create thousands of new jobs for the community.

Included in the expansion plans is a new 300-room resort, fittingly called DreamMore. It's scheduled to open in summer 2015, according to her website. It will include a spa, a swimming pool, porches to mingle, and shuttle services to and from the park, among other amenities.