A couple of weeks back I was on vacation, and my wife was not, so we were limited in the amount of travel we could do. She was off on Wednesday, so we decided to drive down to Tupelo, MS. She had been wanting to see Elvis Presley’s Birthplace, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to check off a couple National Park Service sites, Brice’s Crossroads National Battlefield, and Tupelo National Battlefield.
The way that we went, our first stop was at Mississippi Final Stands Interpretive Center, which has a small museum and gift shop with exhibits from the two battles, as well as maps for the driving tour at Brice’s Crossroads. From there, we traveled westward to the beginning of a 12 mile loop with historical markers that the state erected in 1959 to mark key location of the battle. It’s important to note that many of these locations are on the right of way adjacent to private homes, so be sure you are respectful when visiting. Below are images from tour stops 1 and 4.
As you can see in tour stop 4’s image, it may not be a good idea to visit on Wednesday’s, as that is garbage day, lol.
As we continued west we came to the actual crossroads, where the NPS owns a piece of lane and has erected a flagpole, some signage, a statue, and a couple of cannons. Across the street is the Bethany church, which we were happy to take pictures of, because that is my wife’s name as well.
From there we travelled into Tupelo, and drove past the NPS site marking the battle there. We didn’t have a chance to stop there, as we needed to. get to the Elvis birthplace before they closed. I dropped. my. wife of t to look around at her leisure, and headed into downtown Tupelo to see if I could video any trains. I was successful in catching one train, and also caught a couple on our drive back, if you are interested in seeing that video, you can click here.
While I didn’t see the Elvis site myself, it did appear interesting. In addition to the home that he was born in, they have moved a small church to the property that the Presley’s attended, there is a museum, a statue depicting Elvis at thirteen years old, a reflecting pond, a bridge over the water, and a set of statues titled BECOMING, showing Elvis transforming from boyhood to super stardom. The ticket prices are quite reasonable, certainly a better value than Graceland, at least in my humble opinion. You can check out more information here.
My wife took several great photos from the tour, you can see them below.
On our way back, we travelled east towards Decatur, AL and then made the left turn back toward’s Nashville. All in all it was a solid say trip and we had a great time. If you’d like any additional info or have questions about this trip, just let us know.
lastchancepowerdrive.com 