08/30/2026
Welcome to Cash Country!
There’s a pretty unique piece of country music history tucked away in my hometown of Welch, Oklahoma.
After hearing Johnny Cash’s “One Piece at a Time,” Welch businessman Bill Patch decided to bring the song to life. He turned to a crew of men who worked for him at the Patch Coal Company — Harley Malone, Leland Mayfield, Eldon McCoy, and Don P. Chenoweth — and using parts from different years and models of Cadillacs, they built their own real-life version of the car from Cash’s song.
And they committed to the details. The car had two doors on one side and one on the other, mismatched headlights, one tail fin, and even different Cadillac model names running down each side.
Getting it titled became a story of its own. Patch took the paperwork documenting the different pieces that had gone into the car to the Vinita Tag Office, where getting the unusual Cadillac titled reportedly took most of the day and required help from the state office in Oklahoma City.
But Bill had built the car with someone particular in mind: Johnny Cash.
After months of trying to get the car to Cash, Bill Patch traveled to Nashville while one of his mechanics hauled the Cadillac down. They took it to the House of Cash, where Johnny saw the car, took it for a drive around Nashville, and ultimately accepted Bill’s gift.
That unusual Cadillac sparked a friendship that would eventually bring Johnny and June Carter Cash to Welch.
At the time, the Welch Lions Club was raising money for our civic auditorium. Johnny and June came to town and performed a benefit concert, helping the Lions Club reach its goal. They later returned for another show and made quite an entrance: driving the “One Piece at a Time” Cadillac right through the auditorium doors before making their way to the stage.
Welch became known as “Cash Country.”
Decades later, the car made its way back inside that same auditorium. Harley Malone, one of the original men who helped build it, got to ride in it again, with Tim Mayfield, the son of fellow builder Leland Mayfield, behind the wheel.
From a song, to a Cadillac built by a group of men in a little Oklahoma town, to a friendship with the Man in Black, it’s one of my favorite pieces of the history that makes Welch home.
