The Overton Park Shell

The Overton Park Shell is now one of the few remaining, Great Depression-era "hand shell" theaters. Despite efforts to have it razed, it was saved and renovated. The shell has hosted all categories of music and theater. Elvis Presley's first major appearance was here. , During the Depression, public works projects were initiated under the auspices of the WPA (Work Progress Administration, subsequently the Works Projects Administration), launched in 1935 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. In Memphis, the WPA and the city administration under Mayor Watkins Overton constructed a band shell and a monkey park. The Shell opened on September 6, 1936 in Overton Park, named for one of the city's founders. Mayor Overton's great grandfather, John. The design by Max Furbinger and his associate Merrill Ehrman was based on similar band shells in St. Louis and Chicago. , The Memphis site is a natural amphitheater, and concerts had been held here on improvised stages before the shell was built. The project was budgeted at twelve thousand dollars, and came in sixty-five dollars under. Memphis's WPA band and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra were among the inaugural acts. The area accommodated four thousand seats with additional space for two thousand standees. Open-air concerts included regular Music Under the Stars events, staged by the Memphis Federation of Musicians., On July 30, 1954, Elvis Presley (billed in some newspaper advertisements as "Ellis" Presley), made his first major concert appearance here, supporting country stars Slim Whitman and Billy Walker, Presley's first record had been out less than one month. His legs shook out of nervousness, creating a response from the audience. "My manager told me they was hollering 'cause I was wiggling my legs," he said two years later. , As early as 1954 there was a proposal to demolish the shell to make room for a theater building. In 1966, the City of Memphis turned over the site to the Memphis Arts Center, reviving plans to demolish it. Violinist Noel Gilbert, who conducted the Memphis Concert Orchestra, led a drive to save the shell, earning it a reprieve. , In the 1970s, the site could be rented for just two thousand dollars a night, including security and insurance. Noise levels front rock shows prompted another campaign to demolish it. In 1982, the National Conference of Christians and Jews proposed raising funds for restoration and the shell was renamed in honor of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who had saved thousands of Jews from Nazi death camps. The campaign could not raise the required funds, though, leading to yet another plant o raze the shell to build a parking lot for the Brooks Museum., Mayor Dick Hackett pledge to fund the renovation if a private group would spearhead an arts program. The shell lay largely disused until 2005 when the City partnered with the Mortimer and Mimi Levitt Foundation to renovate it and present fifty free concerts a year. Renamed Levitt Shell at Overton Park, renovation was begun in 2007. It reopened on September 4, 2008., On March 3, 2022, the Shell returned to its historic name, the Overton Park Shell.