Union Gospel Tabernacle The auditorium opened as the
Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892. Its construction was spearheaded by
Thomas Ryman (1843–1904), a Nashville businessman who owned several saloons and a fleet of
riverboats. Ryman conceived the idea of the auditorium as a
tabernacle for the influential revivalist
Samuel Porter Jones. He had attended one of Jones' 1885
tent revivals with the intent to heckle, but was instead converted into a devout Christian who pledged to build the tabernacle so the people of Nashville could attend large-scale revivals indoors. It took seven years to complete and cost . Jones held his first revival at the site on May 25, 1890, when only the building's foundation and walls had been completed. Architect
Hugh Cathcart Thompson designed the structure. Exceeding its construction budget, the tabernacle opened in debt. Jones sought to name the tabernacle in Ryman's honor, but Ryman denied the request several times. When Ryman died in 1904, his memorial service was held at the tabernacle, with Jones officiating. During the service, Jones proposed the building be renamed as Ryman Auditorium, which was met with the overwhelming approval of the attendees. She preferred to use the name "L.C. Naff" in an attempt to avoid initial prejudices as a female executive in a male-dominated industry. Naff gained a reputation for battling local censorship groups, who had threatened to ban various performances deemed too risqué. In 1939, Naff won a landmark lawsuit against the Nashville Board of Censors, which was planning to arrest the star of the play
Tobacco Road due to its provocative nature. The court declared the law creating the censors to be invalid. The Ryman also hosted lectures by U.S. presidents
Theodore Roosevelt and
William Howard Taft in 1907 and 1911, respectively. Italian opera singer
Enrico Caruso appeared in concert there in 1919. It also hosted the inaugurations of three
governors of the state of Tennessee. The Ryman through the mid-1960s hosted many musicians:
Marian Anderson in 1932,
Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys in 1945,
Little Jimmy Dickens in 1948,
Hank Williams in 1949,
The Carter Sisters with
Mother Maybelle Carter in 1950,
Elvis in 1954,
Johnny Cash in 1956, trumpeter Louis Armstrong in 1957,
Patsy Cline in 1960,
Lester Flatt &
Earl Scruggs (bluegrass) in 1964, and
Minnie Pearl in 1964. Prior to September 27, 1963, Ryman Auditorium had no singular owner; it was an independent entity governed by a board of directors. That changed when WSM, Inc., purchased the building for . When WSM assumed total control of the auditorium, it renamed the building as the
Grand Ole Opry House. Many people continued to refer to it by the familiar Ryman name, well-known after 60 years in use. In an effort to maintain continuity with the
Opry's storied past, a large circle was cut from the floor of the Ryman stage and inlaid into the center of the new
Opry stage. In another traditional holdover, the new Opry House was also designed to feature pew seating, although (unlike the Ryman) they are cushioned. Eventually and without fanfare, the building downtown resumed using the Ryman Auditorium name to differentiate it from the new Grand Ole Opry House.
Facing demolition When the plans for Opryland USA were announced, WSM president Irving Waugh also revealed the company's intent to demolish the Ryman and use its materials to construct a chapel called "The Little Church of Opryland" at the amusement park. Waugh brought in a consultant to evaluate the building, noted theatrical producer
Jo Mielziner, who had staged a production at the Ryman in 1935. He concluded that the Ryman was "full of bad workmanship and contains nothing of value as a theater worth restoring." Mielziner suggested the auditorium be razed and replaced with a modern theater. However,
Roy Acuff, an
Opry stalwart and a major stakeholder of Opryland USA, reportedly said, "I never want another note of music played in that building." He led the unsuccessful charge to tear down the Ryman. Acuff, a staunch supporter of moving the
Opry to a modern home, told
The Washington Post in 1974, "Most of my memories of the Ryman Auditorium are of misery, sweating out here on this stage, the audience suffering too... We've been shackled all of my career." In September 1983, soon after NLT Corporation was acquired in a
hostile takeover bid by
American General Insurance, the building was included in the sale of all the WSM and Opryland properties to Oklahoma-based Gaylord Broadcasting Company for . (The WSM assets were organized into a subsidiary holding company called Opryland USA, Inc., which would change its name to
Gaylord Entertainment Company following a 1991
corporate spin-off.) The company's chief executive,
Ed Gaylord, had become acquainted with many of the
Opry stars during his involvement with the long-running television series
Hee Haw. His fondness for the
Opry and friendships with its figures – particularly
Sarah Cannon – are often cited as reasons for his interest in the acquisition. Capacity was limited to around 200. Following that, the Ryman hosted an extended residency of the original musical
Always... Patsy Cline, which starred
Mandy Barnett in the titular role about the life of
the legendary singer.
Return of the Opry On Sunday, October 18, 1998, the
Opry held a benefit show at Ryman Auditorium, marking its return to the venue for the first time since its final show on March 15, 1974. The show was well received by fans, performers, and management alike, so the decision was made to host the
Opry's regular shows there on January 15 and 16, 1999, as part of the celebration to commemorate 25 years at the new venue. Given the success of the January shows that year, beginning in November 1999, the
Opry was produced at Ryman Auditorium for three months. In addition, this enabled them to avoid performance conflicts from construction of the
Opry Mills shopping mall (which replaced the Opryland USA theme park in 2000) next door to the Grand Ole Opry House. The
Opry returned to the Ryman annually for all of its November, December, and January shows until 2019–20. This enabled the production to acknowledge its roots while taking advantage of a smaller venue during the off-peak season for tourism. It also freed the Grand Ole Opry House for special holiday presentations. The Ryman also served as the primary venue for the
Opry in the summer of 2010, while the Grand Ole Opry House was undergoing repairs after damage from a
devastating flood. The annual winter season at the Ryman was suspended in 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, during which the
Opry performed abbreviated shows for broadcast in front of an empty Grand Ole Opry House. The Winter Ryman residency was not revived in 2021 although pandemic-related attendance restrictions were lifted. The Ryman was unharmed in the
2010 Tennessee floods and the
2020 Nashville bombing, both of which resulted in major damage to parts of the downtown neighborhood. In January 2012 plans were announced to replace the Ryman's 61-year-old stage with one of medium-brown Brazilian
teak. The new stage floor, the facility's third, retained an 18-inch lip of its predecessor's blonde oak at its front edge, similar to the way the Ryman stage had been commemorated with an inlaid circle of wood at the new Opry House. The stage's original hickory support beams were reinforced with concrete foundations, crossbeams, and joist work that helped triple the stage's load capacity, ensuring it would remain viable for performances in the decades to come. In 2015, the Ryman underwent another renovation and expansion. Much of the 1994 expansion was gutted and remodeled. The original building received only minor touch-ups and remained in use throughout the construction. The renovation and expansion includes more lobby space, plus expanded restrooms, concessions, and a retail shop. A new quick-service restaurant was added, called "Cafe Lula" and named in memory of
Lula C. Naff. The cafe closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was not reopened. An expanded retail shop selling Ryman memorabilia opened in its place in 2023. The previous retail shop was then converted to a VIP lounge. Prior to the pandemic, Opry Entertainment Group held regular shows at the Ryman year-round. In addition to the
Opry at the Ryman shows in the winter, the auditorium hosted
Opry Country Classics each spring and autumn, and
Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman each summer. Due to the scheduling of concerts postponed during the pandemic, those Opry spin-off shows were canceled or moved to the Grand Ole Opry House in 2021. As COVID-19 hit Nashville, live music at the Ryman briefly came to a halt, until the venue launched the Livestream concert series, "Live at the Ryman" in August 2020.
For King & Country,
Cam,
Chris Janson,
Scotty McCreery,
Brett Young, and
Old Crow Medicine Show put on Friday night shows from the Ryman stage for a completely digital audience. Ultimately,
Bluegrass Nights returned to the Ryman in 2021 and
Opry at the Ryman returned in January 2023.
Opry Country Classics has remained at the Grand Ole Opry House, except for a yearly matinee during
CMA Fest in June. The Ryman has welcomed a wide variety of talent since its inception. In recent years, Wu-Tang Clan made history as the Ryman's first hip-hop headliner; the Ryman welcomed its first headlining drag queens, Trixie and Katya; and the venue hosted its first comedy residency in August 2022, with comedian John Mulaney doing four stand-up shows in three nights. Ryman Auditorium has hosted several notable residencies including a string of 10 shows from Little Big Town in 2017 that took place as part of the Ryman's 125th anniversary celebration. In 2022 alone, Vince Gill and Amy Grant, Vince Gill (solo), Jason Isbell, and Brett Eldredge all held residencies at the Ryman. In 2018, the Ryman was named the most iconic structure in Tennessee by
Architectural Digest. The Ryman has been named ''Pollstar's'' Theater of the Year 13 times and was named the Academy of Country Music's Theater of the Year in 2022. The Academy of Country Music Awards, Americana Music Association Awards, Nashville Songwriter Awards, and several other industry award ceremonies have taken place on the Ryman stage. The Ryman features prominently in the music video of the 2021 song "Where Have You Gone" by
Alan Jackson. On May 26, 2022, the Ryman officially became a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Landmark. Later that year, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame partnered with the Ryman to transform a wing of the building into a tour feature dedicated to rock history in Nashville. "Rock Hall at the Ryman" opened to the public on November 2, 2022, and includes artifacts from artists including Elvis Presley, James Brown, Joan Jett, Foo Fighters and Dolly Parton. The Ryman has also served as a gathering place for the
memorial services of many prominent country music figures.
Tammy Wynette,
Chet Atkins,
Skeeter Davis,
Harlan Howard,
Bill Monroe,
Waylon Jennings,
Johnny Cash, Billy Block,
George Hamilton IV,
Earl Scruggs,
Jim Ed Brown, and
Naomi Judd have all been memorialized from the Ryman stage. ==Museum and tours==