Today marks the 53rd anniversary of the Country Music Hall of Fame's very first round of inductions. During a Friday night performance of the Grand Ole Opry on November 3, 1961, three country heavyweights — Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and publisher/songwriter Fred Rose — were posthumously honored by the Hall of Fame, which had been created earlier that year by the Country Music Association. Since the physical Hall of Fame Museum wouldn't be built until 1967, the CMA wound up taking over a small portion of the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, where bronze plaques of Williams, Rodgers and Rose were displayed for five and a half years.
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