Alabama's "Pittsburgh of the South" Rejuvenates its Giant Icon

Story by Gin Phillips / Sept. 27, 2002

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Vulcan's torso has withstood years of cracks (Robinson Iron)

A naked statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of the forge, its backside bared to an elegant suburb of Birmingham, Ala., may not be a typical symbol for a Bible Belt city. But when the 56-foot, 120,000-pound statue began to deteriorate, Birmingham residents weren't about to lose the face—albeit it a scowling one—of their city.

Cast in 1904 from iron from local foundries, Vulcan glorified the city, the South's leading industrial center in the 1900s. But by 1999, the statue showed wear from weather and several unsuccessful repairs. Several six-foot steel brackets had been fastened across cracks in the torso, but the architectural Band-Aids didn't stop dangerous fracturing. A 75-pound thumb had fallen off before World War II, and more cracks were appearing in the iron skin. Fearing for visitors' safety, city officials closed Vulcan Park in March 1999.

So Vulcan, the largest cast-metal statue in the world, was lowered from his 123-foot-tall sandstone pedestal and disassembled in October of that year. (The head, arms, legs, and torso had been cast separately and welded together.) That fall, the efforts to raise $14 million for the renovation began.

When Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) finagled $1.5 million in federal funds in 2000, Vulcan landed on the national map. Birmingham, often reduced to a single, reprehensible image of 1960s racial injustice, has embraced its eccentric exhibitionist icon. The steel industry that Vulcan celebrates has been eclipsed by science and technology in a city that's home to 243,000 people and one of the country's best hospitals and medical schools.

"Anyone who's ever lived here or just gone through here has a memory of Vulcan—flying kites on Vulcan, a first kiss, getting proposed to," said Mary Lynn Hanily, director of development and marketing for the Vulcan Park Foundation, the civic organization formed in 1999 to manage and raise funds for the renovation. "From the oldest of us to the youngest, there's a lot of goodwill toward Vulcan."

Built for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the statue was originally supposed to be 50 feet tall, but when Birmingham learned that a Tokyo Buddha topped it at 52 feet, planners made Vulcan four feet taller. After he captured the grand prize at the fair, Vulcan was shipped back to his home city, where his presence caused an immediate uproar: In its planned place of honor downtown, the statue would moon the city. Shuttled instead to the state fair grounds, Vulcan fell prey to merchants who painted overalls on him, removed his spear, and stuck a Coke can in his hand in its place.

Vulcan was rescued from his exile in 1938 and moved to Red Mountain, near downtown. Perched on pedestal that raised his total height to 179 feet—and placed atop a mountain that upped his elevation to nearly 600 feet—his nudity seemed more abstract. Birmingham Jaycees in 1946 fitted his empty hand with a neon torch, which was usually green but glowed red when a traffic fatality occurs. An elevator ferries visitors to an observation level at the base of the statue.

Moving Vulcan (Robinson Iron)

In fall 2001, with a renovation plan in place, Vulcan's pieces—from the 10,000-pound feet to the two-ton head—were moved to Robinson Iron in nearby Alexander City, where the renovation hit full throttle. Contractors had drilled out the concrete that filled him below the waist and that had expanded with water over the years, according to Scott Howell, vice president and general manager of Robinson Iron. Workers will replace the concrete with a stainless-steel skeleton, an armature of one-inch thick plates extending like a real skeleton throughout Vulcan's body. "It provides a way to re-anchor him without the concrete, to provide wind resistance up to 140 miles per hour, but still allow the statue to breathe," Howell says. Experts also removed decades' worth of paint layers—including the green overalls—in order to return the statue to its original gray. (They suspect that Italian sculptor Guiseppe Moretti wanted to emulate the color of raw cast iron.)

To prevent further water damage, Robinson crews also constructed a skull cap. "There was no evidence that he ever had anything on top of head, but we made a new hairpiece that allows him to shed water naturally," Howell says.

Aside from his new wig, the man of iron has a new spear, a replica of his original, and a new hammer. An exterior elevator to an observation deck will provide access for the disabled while retaining the architectural integrity of the statue. (The sleek, clear model is hidden from most views of the statue, a far cry from the previous marbled elevator which citizens said detracted from the statue itself. An interior elevator would have jeopardized $4 million in historic-preservation funds.)

(Robinson Iron)

The statue is now 80 percent completed. In October, "the big, giant head" will be moved to the Birmingham Museum of Art for display, Hanily says. Now crews are completing the steel armature in the arms and finishing a zinc coating before painting. Then they'll reassemble the statue and refit a left hand that's been askew since the original assembly at the fair.

Of the $14 million needed for the capital campaign, the Vulcan Park Foundation has raised $13 million. The campaign has tapped a wide array of government, private, and corporate sources. "Not having Vulcan as our symbol would take away a part of our community's identity," says Steve Yoder, chairman of the board of directors of the foundation. "For business donors, Vulcan is also a symbol of our community's economic development. When they commissioned the statue, Birmingham business leaders were signaling to the country that our state had emerged from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy."

Because of that symbolism, a number of local corporations have asked that Vulcan Park's new visitors center—to be completed in late summer 2003—be available for economic-development meetings.

In early 2004, the statue will return, and its pedestal's 1938 stonework will also be restored.

"We've done projects that are bigger than Vulcan," Howell says, "but I don't know that I've ever done a project more endearing."

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