On July 10, we left Texarkana with the objective of spending the night in Tyler. On our way to Tyler, we stopped outside the city of Longview to visit the Reo Palm Isle.
Longview, TX.
The iconic Reo Palm Isle has seen better days. The building, while clean and renovated, has little resemblance to the one that Elvis and others such as Jim Reeves, Ray Price, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Willie Nelson performed in during the heydays. According to Lanny Medlin and Heather Milligan: "The club's 3,000-square-foot dance floor has been lauded as the largest in East Texas. Other features include pool tables, a mechanical bull, and a restaurant. Reo Palm Isle was rated the best dance hall in Texas Monthly magazine in 1976 and one of the state's top ten clubs in Texas Highways" (2010). Update 2018: The venue is now permanently cloased.
Tom Perryman organized a full week of concerts in the area, and Reo Palm Isle was the biggest venue. On January 27, 1955, Elvis, Scotty and Bill debuted at the Reo Palm Isle. The bill also included Jim Ed and Maxine Brown.
Elvis returned to Longview on March 31, 1955 to play at the Reo Palm Isle. This time, he shared the bill with Onie Wheeler. Tom Perryman organized another tour in August 1995 where Elvis played with The Browns in Tyler, Henderson, Kilgore and Longview. The last time Elvis played in the Reo Palm Isle was November 18, 1955, Hank Thompson and Charlene Arthur were also part of the entertainment.
Kilgore, TX.
Elvis only performed once in Kilgore, Texas. The show was also promoted by DJ Tom Perryman and announced in the Tyler Courier Times Telegraph. as scheduled at Driller Park on August 12, 1955 at 8:00 PM.
Driller Park is still standing and being used regularly by the local high school and college baseball teams. The park was constructed in 1947 and hosted the Kilgore Drillers for four seasons. According to Wikipedia.com: "The Kilgore Drillers were a minor league baseball team that played in the Lone Star League from 1947 to 1948 and the East Texas League from 1949 to 1950".
In 2008, the park was refurbished to host the East Texas Pump Jacks team. The team played in the Texas Collegiate League. In 2015, The amateur team moved to Tyler and finally disbanded.
We quickly visited the well-kept baseball park and headed to the Kilgore Public Library to research the Kilgore News Herald archives on microfilm. Unfortunately, the concert was not announced in the local newspaper. We were impressed by how beautiful the Library building was. According to Wikipedia.com "Based on the style of Normandy cottages, construction of the Kilgore Public Library began in 1933 and was completed in 1939. The New Deal agencies, the Public Works Administration and Works Progress Administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, participated in the construction."
We left Kilgore and traveled to Tyler.
