It’s June thirteenth, and on this day in 1962… NBC-TV contributed twenty-five hundred dollars to the city of Tupelo, Mississippi, to help create a park beside the humble two-room house where Elvis Presley was born. Teenagers had already raised seven thousand dollars toward the project, demonstrating the power of Elvis’s connection to his hometown and to young fans across the country. The plan included purchasing not only Elvis’s birthplace but also two adjoining houses—one reportedly belonging to his grandfather, J.D. Presley—with the intention of clearing the space to honor Elvis’s roots with a public park.
