"In the spring of 1957, if his life had taken a different path, it might have been possible to see Elvis filling out law school applications, or interviewing for his first job as college graduation approached. But the hardworking son of Gladys and Vernon Presley was already his family's sole breadwinner and already looking, at the age of 22, to purchase them a new home. He found that home on the outskirts of Memphis—a southern Colonial mansion on a 13.8-acre wooded estate. With a $1,000 cash deposit against a sale price of $102,500, he agreed to purchase the home called Graceland on March 19, 1957. He had already bought one house for his parents on Audubon Drive, in East Memphis, but that residential neighborhood had become overrun with gawkers and worshipers as Elvis became a megastar. There was also the matter of the growing entourage of extended family and friends around Elvis driving the need for a larger home base. Officially, Graceland was where Elvis, his parents and his grandmother Minnie Mae lived, but unofficially, it was also the home of the ever-changing cast of childhood friends who surrounded and often drew salaries from Elvis. Many girlfriends and one wife also came and went at Graceland during its 20 years as Elvis's base of operations. Today it is preserved precisely as he left it when he passed away, in his upstairs bathroom, on August 16, 1977. In the years since then, it has become one of the nation's most popular tourist attractions —the second-most-visited house in America after the big white one on Pennsylvania Avenue."