Memphis: Elvis Legacy, Blues Roots and the Great Migration
Tour Graceland and the Elvis industry, learn W.C. Handy role in publishing the blues, explore Memphis new food scene, visit the Chucalissa Mississippian village, marvel at the Bass Pro Pyramid, and understand how Memphis shaped the Great Migration that transformed American cities.
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Graceland and the Elvis Industry
Graceland, Elvis Presley home from 1957 until his death on August 16, 1977, opened for public tours in 1982 and has since welcomed over 20 million visitors from every country in the world. The mansion, on 13.8 acres on Elvis Presley Boulevard in Whitehaven, was purchased by Elvis in 1957 for 102,500 dollars. Elvis is buried in the Meditation Garden behind the house alongside his parents and grandmother. The Graceland complex has expanded to include a museum campus, two hotels, an airplane pavilion housing the Lisa Marie private aircraft, and an entertainment venue seating 6,300 people. Annual visitor spending related to Graceland contributes an estimated 150 million dollars to the Memphis economy. Authentic Brands Group purchased Graceland in 2023 for a reported 375 million dollars.
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W.C. Handy and the Blues Birthplace Claim
W.C. Handy, born in Florence, Alabama in 1873, is called the Father of the Blues for his role in transcribing and publishing blues compositions for a mass market. His 1912 publication of Memphis Blues was the first blues song to be published as sheet music. Handy moved to Memphis in 1909 and worked as a bandleader on Beale Street. The W.C. Handy House Museum at 352 Beale Street, a small shotgun house where Handy lived, interprets his life and the moment when folk blues transitioned into a documented musical form. Handy Park on Beale Street contains a bronze statue of Handy with his cornet. The Memphis Blues as a musical designation predates the Chicago Blues and the Delta Blues by a decade, making Beale Street foundational to the entire lineage.
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Memphis Food Trucks and Young Chef Scene
Memphis culinary scene beyond barbecue has diversified substantially since 2010, driven by young chefs returning to Memphis after training elsewhere and a food truck culture that developed after permitting reforms in 2012. The Memphis Food Truck Association coordinates a network of over 60 registered food trucks. The Cooper-Young neighborhood around Cooper Street and Young Avenue supports a concentration of independent restaurants, bars, and music venues that anchors the midtown dining scene. Memphis has produced James Beard Award nominees in recent years for chefs working in Southern fusion, Vietnamese, and contemporary American formats. The Memphis Farmers Market, operating downtown since 2006, connects urban restaurants and home cooks with West Tennessee growers.
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Chucalissa Archaeological Site
Chucalissa Archaeological Site, operated by the University of Memphis on the Chucalissa bluff above the Mississippi River 10 miles south of downtown, preserves a Mississippian culture village occupied from approximately 1000 to 1550 AD. The site contains reconstructed platform mounds, a central plaza, and residential structures representing a community that may have reached 1,000 inhabitants at its peak. The C.H. Nash Museum at the site interprets Native American cultures of the Mid-South from Paleo-Indian through historic period. University of Memphis anthropology students conduct ongoing excavation at the site, making it one of the few active archaeological sites with public visitor access in the American South. The name Chucalissa comes from a Choctaw phrase meaning abandoned houses.
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Memphis Pyramid and Bass Pro Shops
The Memphis Pyramid, a 32-story stainless steel structure rising 321 feet above the Mississippi River, was built in 1991 as an arena seating 20,000 people. It hosted professional basketball and concerts but closed in 2004 when FedExForum opened. Bass Pro Shops purchased the structure and reopened it in 2015 as the largest Bass Pro retail store in the world, incorporating a 100-room hotel, four restaurants, a bowling alley, an archery range, and a swamp with live alligators and fish. A transparent elevator runs up through the interior to an observation deck at the apex. The conversion cost 110 million dollars and became one of the most unusual adaptive reuse projects in American retail history, drawing visitors who come specifically to experience the building rather than shop.
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Memphis and the Great Migration
Memphis served as a critical node in the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to northern cities between 1910 and 1970. Approximately 6 million Black Southerners left the region during this period seeking economic opportunity and escape from Jim Crow laws. Memphis train stations, particularly Central Station on South Main Street, were departure points for hundreds of thousands of migrants heading north on the Illinois Central Railroad to Chicago. The migration transformed Chicago, Detroit, and New York City culturally and politically while also carrying Memphis musical traditions, including blues and gospel, to northern cities where they cross-pollinated with jazz and eventually contributed to rhythm and blues, soul, and hip-hop. The Illinois Central line was so central to this movement that it was called the Soul Train long before Don Cornelius adopted the name for his television show.