Martha Crump was 15 years old in 1956, and she wasn’t about to miss Elvis Presley.
So she skipped class. She left Birmingham, Alabama, and headed for Tupelo, Mississippi, the town where Elvis was born. He was coming home.
On September 26, 1956, Elvis, then 21, played two shows in Tupelo, one at 2:30 PM and another at 7:30 PM. They were part of the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, held at the town’s fairgrounds. He wore a blue velvet shirt that day. News reports from the time guessed the crowd at anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000 people.
Martha and a group of friends stayed overnight. They slept in one friend’s car in the parking lot of a local Kroger grocery store. When you’re 15 and Elvis is in town, that’s what you do.
What does she remember first? His car.
“We just remember we got here early and we saw his car,” she told reporter Elise Catrion Gregg of WWNO and the Gulf States Newsroom. It was a Cadillac, and she remembers it “going across the field and the dust flying and all.”
WWNO linked to this fan upload of film from that 1956 homecoming in its story. The fan labels it color footage, and since the original home movie was silent, any color or sound you see and hear was likely added later.
Film of Elvis’s 1956 homecoming show in Tupelo
That day was only the beginning for Martha. She went on to see Elvis in concert 10 more times during his lifetime.
Elvis passed away many years ago, but Tupelo still remembers that day.
On Saturday, September 26, 2026, exactly 70 years to the day, the town held “Elvis ’56,” a recreation of the 1956 show. It took place at Fairpark, the same spot where the old fairgrounds stood. Elvis tribute artist Nick Perkins of Hammond, Louisiana, took the stage to bring the day back to life.
And Martha Crump came back too.
Now 85, she made the trip from Alabama once more, this time with her daughter and her husband by her side. She stood on the same ground where she’d watched that Cadillac roll across the field as a teenager.
“I couldn’t believe when they were having this anniversary that we were here 70 years ago…” she said.
Being back meant more than she could easily put into words.
“I can’t explain it. It’s just special,” she said. “I just knew I had to be here.”
Another 1956 fan, Brenda Hildenbrand of Tupelo, was there too.
Here’s another fan video looking back at that first homecoming concert.
A look back at Elvis’s historic 1956 Tupelo homecoming
Martha’s story has a way of sticking with you. A teenage girl sleeping in a car at a grocery store just to catch a glimpse of Elvis, and then, seven decades later, standing in the same spot with her own family next to her. For her, the trip to Tupelo was every bit as special the second time around.