Sunset Park: Country Music's Hidden Stage in Chester County
Near Wilmington, Pennsylvania
Just off the road here in West Grove, a family-run outdoor music park quietly became a well-known country and bluegrass venue. Sunset Park operated from nineteen forty to nineteen ninety-five under the Waltman family, drawing some of the biggest names in American roots music to a corner of Chester County, Pennsylvania.
The lineup over those five decades reads like a hall of fame: Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Randy Travis, Bill Monroe. The park helped carry the old sound that radio stations once called hillbilly music into the country music the nation came to know. Live recordings made here over the years are said to preserve performances from its stage. It was a long-running institution that country music history has mostly overlooked, hidden in plain sight in southeastern Pennsylvania.
