Click here for more details on "Bluffton Anthology."
On Thanksgiving Day 1956, Elvis Presley performed twice in the Toledo Sports Arena. Two days later he performed at the Troy Hobart Arena, just north of Dayton.

In 1956, without an interstate highway, the most direct route from Toledo to Troy went through Bluffton on old U.S. 25, which was Main Street.

About 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 24, 1956, two funeral-size limousines with Tennessee plates pulled into to Bucher’s SOHIO station to gas up at the corner of North Main and Jefferson. (Today, it is Bluffton Auto Repair, part of Stratton Auto Group)

The first car parked in front of the gas station along Jefferson Street. The second car, a big blue limousine with a roof rack, pulled in front of the gas station, taking up both available gas pumps.

In a house across the street from the gas station a well-known man-about-town of North Main Street was peering out of his front window.

He was the first person to witness the two Tennessee cars at the gas station.

According to this eyewitness a young man with black hair got out of the back seat of the blue limo and tightened the straps holding the tarp covering the luggage on the roof rack.

The young man looked familiar to the eyewitness and he immediately recognized the man as Elvis Presley.

A six-page detailed account of this event, researched and written by Rudi Steiner, is published in "Bluffton Anthology." The book is available downtown at:
• Roots by Strattons
• Bluffton Senior Citizens Center
• The Food Store
• The Black Lab
• The Dough Hook 
• Polished