Bring a Sharpie. That’s what Memphis locals tell anyone heading to Graceland, the house where Elvis Presley lived for the last 20 years of his life.
You’ll need it for the wall out front. You may have to walk a while to find an empty spot, because the stone is already crowded with names, hometowns, hearts and short letters to a man who died in 1977.
Elvis was 22 when he bought Graceland in the spring of 1957. He was the hottest young singer in America, and fans had already worked out where he lived.
So things moved fast.
On April 22, 1957, less than a month after the sale, a pair of iron gates went up at the bottom of the driveway. They’re shaped like a page of sheet music, with musical notes and little guitar players that look an awful lot like Elvis himself.
Graceland’s archive still has the bill. The Tennessee Fabricating Company charged $1,339 for the gate.
That same spring, a stone wall was built along the front of the property to keep the crowds back. It didn’t work very well.
Fans pressed up against those musical gates hoping for a glimpse, and on some days Elvis came down the hill and signed whatever they pushed through the bars. Somebody had a camera rolling.
Elvis Presley Signing Autographs For Fans at the Graceland Gates
The writing started early too. According to people who’ve studied Graceland’s history, fans were leaving their names and messages on the wall while Elvis still lived up the hill, and the staff mostly let them.
And the wall kept pulling people in, sometimes a little too close.
In April 1976, a 26-year-old rocker from New Jersey played a concert in Memphis. Around 3 a.m., he ended up outside Graceland, spotted lights on in the house and decided this was his one shot at meeting his hero. His name was Bruce Springsteen.
He climbed over the wall.
Security guards caught him just before he reached the front door. You really should hear Springsteen tell the rest himself, because the way he tells it is half the fun.
Bruce Springsteen Broke Into Graceland To Meet Elvis Presley
A little over a year later, on August 16, 1977, Elvis died at Graceland. He was 42.
Crowds of mourners gathered outside the walls, and the messages on the stone took on a new tone. Now people were writing to someone they’d never get to meet.
Some notes are just a name and a date. Others say “Elvis Lives.” One writer who studied the wall found a woman’s note about Elvis being her first love, plus young visitors carefully adding their names and ages.
Every so often, Graceland cleans the wall to make room for new writing. So most messages only last a while before fresh ones cover the same stones.
The gates are still there, too. Visitors stand in front of them for photos and then go hunting for a blank patch of stone.
Every August, on the anniversary of his death, fans come back for a candlelight vigil. For the 40th one in 2017, they lined up outside the gates once again.