Oct. 23, 1946

Vulcan’s torch was lit at a dedication ceremony on Oct. 23, 1946, and remained green for nine days. It then turned red, for the first time alerting citizens of a vehicular fatality when a woman died in a wreck at Birmingham’s Southside.

R. Paul Moon, who chaired a Jaycees safety committee, got the idea of using a color-coded beacon as a highly visible safety signal. The neon light would remain green until a fatality, then would turn red for 24 hours as a warning to others. It was decided that allowing Vulcan to be the bearer of the news would “combine high visibility with the sculpture’s Olympian authority.”

The Alabama Neon Sign Co. designed and engineered the torch. It was installed as part of the Jaycees safety campaign.

Sign company employee Ralph Fesperman scaled the statue without harnesses, causing the Jaycees to fear that an accident could end their safety campaign before began. But Fesperman completed the torch installation without incident.

The torch was popular and received worldwide attention. It led to a significant reduction in traffic fatalities the next year. As a result, the beacon was made a permanent fixture, and a plaque was installed in 1947.

Read more at Bhamwiki. 

Sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, center, and a group of workmen pose before the lower right leg of the statue of Vulcan in 1904, the year it was displayed at the St. Louis World’s Fair. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of the Birmingham Public Library Archives)

Giuseppe Moretti’s Vulcan statue stands amid other displays in the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. It earned silver medals for its creator, Giuseppe Moretti, and iron and steel manufacturers James R. McWane, and J. A. MacKnight, who commissioned the monumental sculpture. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of the A. S. Williams III Americana Collection, the University of Alabama Libraries)

Postcard view of Vulcan on display at the Alabama State Fairgrounds, c. 1910s. (Bhamwiki)

Photograph of Vulcan, 2004. Photograph by Dystopos, Bhamwiki)

For more on Alabama’s bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.