After Elvis passed away, his family made a big decision. They would open Graceland’s doors and let the fans walk through the house he loved.
On June 7, 1982, Graceland welcomed its first tour guests. More than 3,000 fans paid the $5 admission that very first day.
Here’s a look at that day as it happened, from footage of Graceland opening to the public.
Graceland opens its doors, 1982
Most fans assume Priscilla Presley cut the ribbon. She was there, all right, welcoming the first guests.
But the scissors were in somebody else’s hands.
The big moment belonged to Elvis’s Aunt Delta. Her full name was Delta Presley Biggs, and she was Vernon Presley’s sister, which made her Elvis’s aunt on his father’s side.
Graceland’s own history says it plainly: “On June 7, 1982, with the cutting of a blue ribbon by Elvis’ Aunt Delta and CEO Jack Soden, Elvis Presley’s Graceland opened to the public for tours.”
Jack Soden was Graceland’s CEO. Before that he was a stockbroker from Kansas City. When he first came to the house, he found the family still taking care of it the way they always had.
“Delta [Elvis’ aunt] still lived in the house, the maid still came and cleaned, cousins and uncles still cut the grass and painted the fences,” Soden told Memphis Magazine in 2019.
That’s right. Aunt Delta still lived there.
The network news covered opening day too, and this ABC News report from June 7, 1982, lets you see how the story played out for viewers at home.
ABC News on Graceland’s opening day
Aunt Delta had moved into Graceland in the 1960s at Elvis’s invitation, after her husband passed away. Several family members lived at Graceland over the years, but she was the one still there when the tours began.
And she didn’t move out.
“In fact, she still lived at Graceland when it opened for tours, and she lived there with her dog, Edmond,” the Graceland blog wrote years later. She stayed on for 11 more years, until she passed away in 1993.
So while fans toured the famous rooms, Elvis’s aunt and her dog were going about their everyday lives in a private part of the house. The rooms she used were kept off the tour, and Graceland says the kitchen wasn’t added to the tour until 1993.
Here’s Delta herself, talking about the nephew she knew so well.
Aunt Delta talks about Elvis
Graceland’s tours have come a long way since that blue ribbon. By 2022, the house had welcomed more than 22 million guests. That year, to mark 40 years since opening day, Priscilla and Jack Soden sat down together to look back on how it all started.
Priscilla Presley and Jack Soden look back on 40 years of Graceland tours
It’s funny to think about now. All those fans came to see where Elvis lived, and for the first 11 years, a real member of the Presley family was still at home there, with her dog for company. And on the very first day, she’s the one who held the scissors.