Tupelo is a city of about 40,000 people in northeastern Mississippi, best known to the world as the birthplace of Elvis Presley. The small shotgun house on Old Saltillo Road where Elvis was born on 8 January 1935 is now preserved as the Elvis Presley Birthplace and Museum — a modest, almost touching site that gives a real sense of the poverty the family grew up in. The small white house cost his father Vernon $180 to build, and it's been maintained largely as it was.
Beyond the Elvis connection, Tupelo is a regional retail and medical centre for northeastern Mississippi with a pleasant enough downtown. The Natchez Trace Parkway runs close to town — a beautiful scenic road following an ancient trade and travel route through 444 miles of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee countryside — and the Tupelo National Battlefield preserves the site of an 1864 Civil War engagement.
Tupelo markets itself energetically on the Elvis connection and does a reasonable job of it. The Elvis Museum next to the birthplace has good memorabilia, and the town hosts the annual Tupelo Elvis Festival each summer, drawing fans from around the world.