Sunday, September 7, 2008

Eagle's Nest or not?

For years now I have thought the above building was the site of the what was once known as
The Eagle's Nest. The Eagle's Nest was a a nightclub in the 50's that mostly middle class white folks came to to enjoy drinking and country and western music. Elvis, Scotty, and Bill performed there many times in 1954. The Eagle's Nest was part of a two story building that had a dance floor on the second floor where people would dance and such and live acts would perform from time to time. The first floor housed a 24 hour restaurant, the only one in Memphis at the time. It also has dressing rooms for the pool that sat outside. The place sounds so damn cool. Just once more reason to wish I was a teenager in Memphis in the early 50's. Anyway for years now I had saw in several books that this was the site on the Eagle's Nest and some even said this was the actual building. So for a while I thought it was. A few years ago I had heard things saying that this was not the actual building and the old site had been torn down and very long time ago. Some said it was at this site, and some said it was across the street. The building in the picture shown above that was last know as the Americana is on the corner of Lamar and Winchester. On Scotty Moore's website they have some information on this and his thoughts on where the old place once stood. I really do not know what to think about this because I have heard about twenty different stories on this but it stands to reason that the old building in the picture above was not the old club. Sad, because I feel that one more of the significant places in Elvis history and Memphis is gone. The few places that stand to this day I love to visit because I feel like I am getting to see and know a little of the real Elvis at 19 and 20 and how it was like for him back then. Anyway be sure to check out Scotty's site to see more on this and some great rare picture from the Eagle's Nest.

1 comment:

Keith said...

Wow. That does sound awesome. I would love to have been able to hang out there myself.