Pyramid (Bass Pro Shops)

Memphis, Tennessee, United States

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Buildings and structures

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Current

Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

The Memphis Pyramid is a 321-foot stainless-steel pyramid beside the Mississippi River, opened in 1991 as an arena and reopened in 2015 as a Bass Pro Shops store with a hotel, bowling alley and a glass elevator to an observation deck.

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Pyramid (Bass Pro Shops)

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Approximate location · 35.152° N, 90.053° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

A steel pyramid 321 feet high stands beside the Mississippi River in Memphis, and inside it is a Bass Pro Shops store with swamp scenery, a hotel and an elevator to a lookout. Its shape is an homage to the ancient Egyptian city that gave Memphis its name, according to Outside magazine.

Outside reports that the building was conceived in 1984 to house a theme park, Rakapolis, and that its lead developer filed for bankruptcy soon after construction finished. It opened in 1991 as an arena that hosted acts including the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen and Public Enemy. Yahoo describes it as opening that year as the Great American Pyramid. After 2004, when a campaign to lure an NBA team led to the new FedExForum, Outside says, the pyramid was shuttered, and maintenance and utilities cost taxpayers half a million dollars a year.

Word that it might become a Bass Pro Shops superstore leaked in 2005, Outside reports. According to Outside, the city paid nearly $100 million for the renovation, and the store opened in 2015. The 535,000 square feet include a 103-room hotel, Big Cypress Lodge, with rooms on interior balconies above the sales floor, and a 13-lane bowling alley, according to Bass Pro Shops; Outside says the swamp ponds hold 600,000 gallons of water and the building developed its own microclimate. Bass Pro Shops describes a 28-storey freestanding glass elevator, which it calls the world's tallest, rising to The Lookout and its observation deck. Yahoo, in April 2026, called the pyramid the largest pyramid-shaped structure in the Western Hemisphere.

Outside described a 78-foot Bass Pro logo glowing green on the exterior at night in 2022. A 2026 visitor account describes the store and elevator in use, and the operator's store page lists elevator access at a separate charge.

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PRACTICAL

Plan your stop

WHAT TO EXPECT

A working Bass Pro Shops store inside the pyramid, with indoor swamp scenery, an aquarium, bowling, restaurants and a hotel. A glass elevator rises to an observation deck, and the operator's store page lists a separate charge for it.

ACCESS

Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid, 1 Bass Pro Drive, Memphis, Tennessee 38105, on the Mississippi riverfront. The building is a store, so entry is during store hours, per the operator's store page; the observation deck is reached by the ticketed elevator that the operator's store page lists.

COMMUNITY

Visitor Log

WHAT'S NEXT

Find another Big Thing nearby

A 9.5-foot bronze statue of Elvis Presley, by sculptor Andrea Lugar, has stood on Beale Street in Memphis since 1997, depicting Elvis as he might have appeared on Beale Street circa 1955, wearing a stage outfit reminiscent of one he could have bought at Lansky Bros. It replaced the world's first bronze Elvis statue (unveiled 1980), which proved too delicate for outdoor display -- fans stripped its guitar strings and tassels -- and was taken down and moved indoors in 1994.

Landmarks and monuments

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1.4 km away

TRANSPARENCY

Sources & research

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