The Overton Park Shell in Memphis is one of the few remaining Great Depression-era hand shell theaters. Built through the WPA and the city administration under Mayor Watkins Overton, it opened in Overton Park on September 6, 1936, on a natural amphitheater site where concerts had previously been held on improvised stages. Designed by Max Furbinger and Merrill Ehrman after similar band shells in St. Louis and Chicago, the project was budgeted at twelve thousand dollars and finished sixty-five dollars under budget. The site accommodated four thousand seats and space for two thousand standees, and inaugural acts included Memphis's WPA band and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Open-air concerts there included regular Music Under the Stars events staged by the Memphis Federation of Musicians. On July 30, 1954, Elvis Presley made his first major concert appearance there, supporting Slim Whitman and Billy Walker less than a month after his first record was released. The Shell repeatedly faced demolition proposals beginning in 1954 and again after the City of Memphis turned the site over to the Memphis Arts Center in 1966, but efforts led by violinist Noel Gilbert won it a reprieve. Another restoration campaign in 1982 renamed it for Raoul Wallenberg, though fundraising fell short and demolition was again proposed. After years of limited use, the city partnered with the Mortimer and Mimi Levitt Foundation in 2005 to renovate the site and present fifty free concerts a year; renovation began in 2007, it reopened on September 4, 2008, and on March 3, 2022, it returned to its historic name, the Overton Park Shell.
