Camden, Tenn.–For many in our area (and beyond), the day the music died was March 5, 1963, when the plane carrying Patsy Cline, Randy Hughes, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins crashed into a wooded hillside in Camden during a storm.
The plane took off from Dyersburg airport in bad conditions a short while before the crash. They had performed at a benefit in Kansas City for the family of disc jockey “Cactus” Jack Call; he had died in an automobile crash a little over a month earlier.
Randy Hughes, who managed Patsy, was the pilot and the four were hurrying to get home to Nashville.
Word spread fast and many people from the area were among those who visited to crash site and told of seeing many of Patsy’s personal possessions strewn about the trees. Nashville country artists, including Roger Miller, gathered at the site to mourn.
The memorial at the Camden crash site has grown over the years, with a wooden walkway erected in recent years.
Photo by Shannon McFarlin.