Date of Visit: June 20, 2025
Yesterday when we realized we would get to Tupelo around 3:30pm, I considered going further than planned and skipping Tupelo to have a shorter drive to Tulsa today. I'm glad I didn't, though, as we had a fun morning doing some things in Tupelo (and got a swim in last night at the hotel). I just wish we had realized there was the Elvis Guitar Trail yesterday because the weather was nice yesterday evening that we could have enjoyed actually walking and seeing more of the guitars.
As the grounds of the Elvis Presley Birthplace are alway open, we decided to go explore the outdoors part of the site before it opened at 9am. After getting coffee at Strange Brew Coffee, we headed over and spent about an hour doing the walking trail.
Around the house he was born in is a concrete circle with a section for each year of his life. The first 13 representing the years he lived in Tupelo have markers with a fact about Elvis or his family for that year.
From the marker for his 13th year (1948), there is a path that leads to the Elvis at 13 statue.
Next was the Assembly of God church that was Elvis' childhood church, which was not originally this close to his house, but was moved and was a residence when the church got a bigger church and later moved to this site and restored as a church.
The Fountain of Life has 13 spouts from the top representing his years in Tupelo and 29 from below representing his years in Memphis.
This 1939 Plymouth is a replica of the one the Presley family used when they left Tupelo for Memphis.
The Reflections area has a pond with a "Bridge Over Troubled Waters."
The tour ends with the overlook, which has the statues of Elvis as a boy and Elvis as an entertainer, which is known as "Becoming."
When we completed the grounds part of the tour, we still had about 30 minutes until the museum opened. We headed back to Strange Brew Coffee, so I could get the Elvis Presley. Along the way we stopped at one of the Elvis Guitar Trail guitars.
On our way back to the Elvis Presley Birthplace, we stopped at the Tupelo Fairpark, which was once the fairgrounds where he perfomed in 1956 and the iconic photo that this statue replicates was taken.
Back at the Elvis Birthplace, we visited the museum and did the quick tour of the two room house.
Before hitting the road for Tulsa, we stopped at Greatest Hits Music & Books where I found some books I wanted (not hard to do...) and 2 Johnny Horton 45 records.
