Portland’s Legendary 24 Hour Church of Elvis May Re-Open

The 24-Hour Church of Elvis

Stephanie G. Pierce, who ran Portland’s legendary 24 Hour Church of Elvis from 1985 through 2001, is currently looking at new venues in order to re-open her legendary church of the bizarre and 24 hour coin-operated art gallery. Steve Woodward recently wrote about Stephanie’s quest for a new home in The Oregonian. If you want to help in this church revival, consider ordering a t-shirt or other stuff from the online store.

Pierce created bizarre art, such as the Miracle of the Spinning Elvises, the World’s Cheapest Psychic and a portable art gallery banned from the Rose Festival Fun Center for failing to meet family-friendly standards. She conducted weddings legally and for laughs, lived in her storefront after dubbing it Biosphere 6000 and drove around in a motorized love seat.

24 Hour Church

The 24 Hour Church of Elvis was a wonderful place. The last time I was there was in 1996 during the Portland Santacon ’96 event when over a hundred Santas stopped by the church, which is one of the scenes in my pseudo-documentary of the event.

Thanks to Spacemonkey for the tip!

photo credit: CheeseFairy
Scott Beale
Scott Beale

Scott Beale founded Laughing Squid in 1995 in San Francisco and is currently based in New York City. When not running the blog, Scott can be found posting on Bluesky and sharing photos on Instagram.