Today In Music History: Elvis Presley Buys Graceland On March 17, 1957

Elvis Presley bought Graceland, the Memphis mansion that was his longtime home and place of death and is also his final resting place, on this day in 1957.

Presley purchased the house and grounds for $100,000 U.S. from Ruth Moore, who had built the house and inherited the grounds from her aunt, Grace Toof. The Toof family originally owned Memphis printing firm S.C. Toof & Co., which published the Memphis Daily Appeal.

Presley moved into the house with his mother and father that same year, and his mother died there in 1958. His father continued to live on the property with his new wife, and Priscilla Presley lived at Graceland from 1962 to 1972, when she separated from The King.

As everyone knows, Presley died on the toilet in the bathroom at Graceland in 1977 after overdosing on prescription pills.

Graceland was opened to the public as a museum of sorts in 1982, and holds an annual march through the grounds to Presley's grave on the anniversary of his death each year. The U.S. government designated Graceland a National Historic Landmark in 2006.