Music star starts Ole Red construction
Tishomingo entertainment venue should open later this year
Ole Red hopes to tree some retail dollars here, its developer said Monday.
Ryman Hospitality Properties CEO Colin Reed joined Blake Shelton and other dignitaries to formally start construction on Ole Red, an entertainment venue based on Shelton’s hit song, “Ol’ Red.”
The 5,000-square-foot project will be in two adjacent buildings downtown and will include food, a bar, live music and a retail space.
Before driving ceremonial nails into an old board to kick off the project, Reed and Shelton talked about the project before a gathering of about 100 people in a nearby event hall.
Reed said Tishomingo’s Ole Red will be an extension of a much larger Ole Red the company is building in Nashville, Tennessee.
But Reed said the Tishomingo project is special in a way the larger project can’t be, because it will expose its guests to a country lifestyle they’ll get from the surrounding community’s ambience.
Reed said 120 million people in the U.S. like to hunt and fish and love country music, and that Ryman’s goal is to connect with those consumers.
“Our goal is to put these places, Ole Reds, into places like Nashville, or Orlando, or places like Las Vegas, where you see huge amounts of tourists. But this place, I think, will really be an Ole Red where people can actually come and experience country living.
“And that is why I think this could turn out to be the Taj Mahal of Ole Reds. This is a compelling business opportunity, and one I think where we can drive a bunch of tourism business through this town.”
Shelton, an Oklahoman, said Monday he easily could have just taken the buildings — once the home of ex-wife Miranda Lambert’s Pink Pistol boutique — and opened up a hamburger stand, just to keep something going there.
But Shelton said he wanted to do something special, adding he was glad he waited and worked with Reed to come up with the Ole Red concept.
“It actually is interesting about how full circle it actually has all become,” Shelton said.
Shelton said he heard the song “Ol’ Red” for a first time from Hoyt Axton, a country star he had an opportunity to visit with when he first went to Nashville in 1994.
Shelton previously had met Mae Boren Axton, Hoyt Axton’s mother, at an Oklahoma venue where he’d played. When he got to Nashville, he looked her up, and she hired him to paint her home.
Hoyt Axton happened to come to town, invited Shelton aboard his tour bus, told him old stories and played him that song.
“I held on to that song for seven or eight years, until I was able to make my first album. Now, here we are, all these years later, and it has been such a big record for me,” Shelton said.
“Now it has turned into this thing. It is pretty incredible.”
Alan F. Nelson, of Nelson + Morgan Architects, Inc., said Monday the base cost to renovate the two adjacent buildings is about $850,000, and said the project probably will have about 30 people working on any given day. He said he expects Ole Red will open in September.
That’s music to the ears of nearby retailers and community business professionals.
Jackie Baker, who coowns Baker’s Mercantile on the same block as Ole Red with her daughter, Jamie, said it has been a long couple of years since the Pink Pistol left town.
But Tishomingo Realtor Brenda Rowe encouraged her to hang on, and now Baker, Rowe and Leoma Pass, a longtime retailer in Tishomingo who works at Baker’s store, said they are glad they did.
“We didn’t want her to close,” said Rowe, who’s had an office on Tishomingo’s main street since 2000.
Baker said she, Rowe and Pass all grew up in Tishomingo, and they remember downtown once was both a commercial and social center for the community.
“I love this town so much, I never left,” Rowe said. “I love the friendliness, the small-town feel, and people here support everyone. If there is a need, people are there.”
Baker, who originally rented her building from Lambert and now rents it from Shelton, agreed, “100 percent.”
Her shop carries various Made In Oklahoma products, plus Amish items and other local collectibles. The store also serves up fudge, pecans, pecan pies, cinnamon rolls and other treats.
“We knew it was going to be hard, but we had a lot of faith,” Baker said. “Honestly, I just live by faith, and I knew something good would happen when I heard Blake had bought the building.
“I knew he wouldn’t just buy it to leave it empty.”
As for Ole Red, Tishomingo Mayor Tom Lokey and Chickasaw Nation Gov. Bill Anoatubby also spoke as part of the event and expressed their excitement about the project.
“I really, really am at a loss for words, sometimes, as to how fortunate we are to have the interest from Blake, the Ryman organization, and also the Chickasaw Nation,” Lokey said.
Anoatubby, a Tishomingo native, agreed that he believes Ole Red will be good, both for Tishomingo’s economy and for tourism.
He said Ole Red will be another place people will be interested to see, and, that while they are here, they also can enjoy the Blue River, the Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge and other nearby, historical attractions.
Reed and Shelton announced the Ole Red project in January from the stage of the Ryman Auditorium, the storied home of the Grand Ole Opry
After his divorce from Lambert in 2015, Shelton acquired a property she owned on Tishomingo’s main street, promising he would bring something back to the community.
“It left a hole here,” he said, about the departure of Lambert’s retail store from the space. “We all saw what it did for the community, and everyone did well, because there was traffic in town.
“This is going to be the right thing that we need here,” Shelton said about the Ole Red project. “This is going to pay off. I truly believe that.”