Elvis fans already consider Graceland a national treasure.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton will arrive in Memphis on Monday for ceremonies to make the designation official. The home of Elvis Presley, which hosts more than 600,000 tourists a year, will join the Alamo, Pearl Harbor, the White House and Mt. Vernon as a National Historic Landmark.

Graceland, bought by Elvis in 1957 for $103,000 with earnings from his first hit record, "Heartbreak Hotel," will be one of about 2,500 national landmarks.

The Interior Department calls these "exceptional" places on its Web page. "They form a common bond between all Americans. While there are many historic places across the nation, only a small number have meaning to all Americans — these we call our National Historic Landmarks." "Graceland is so famous it is arguable that on a worldwide basis it is the second most famous home in America," said Elvis Presley Enterprises chief executive officer Jack Soden.

"You go to the far corners of the Earth, and they don't really know what Mt. Vernon or Monticello or Hearst Castle are, but they know what Graceland is. It is kind of in a class of its own."

Source: MSNBC

Posted by Lawren at March 27, 2006 07:55 AM | Trackbacks (0)

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