A Family Visit to Vulcan Park & Museum

This past March our daughter Becca, her son Ezra and stepson Zach visited us in Pelham. She came to help us pack for the upcoming move and to give the boys a last visit to the house and to see a couple of Birmingham sights. One of those trips involved an afternoon at Vulcan Park and Museum.

Vulcan is the largest cast iron statue in the world, and was designed for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair by sculptor Giuseppe Moretti. The 56-feet tall statue arrived at the fair site in pieces--the chest alone weighted 8000 pounds and the head 15,000. Only partly erected by the time the fair opened on May 1, its completion by June 7 made Birmingham's entry a sensation. 

The iron man's history after the fair has mirrored the city's, full of ups and downs. Returned in pieces to Birmingham, they were left beside the railroad tracks for two years. Finally, Vulcan was rebuilt at the Alabama State Fairgrounds and remained there for three decades. Since then he has been taken apart and moved to a park atop Red Mountain, and in 1999 disassembled again for restoration. Since 2003 Vulcan has once again become the star attraction of the park and the city's best known symbol. This summary has only touched the many insults and issues suffered by the statue over the decades; read more here and here. 

The literature about Vulcan is large and much can be found via the two websites linked in the previous sentence. I would also like to note an article by Karelisa Hartigan, "A Roman God in Alabama: Birmingham's Vulcan" in Alabama Heritage winter 2004, pp. 4-7. She includes much information about Vulcan's role in Greek and Roman mythology. 

A few of the photos I took that day are below. 

Becca, Zach and Ezra pose in front of the great view of Birmingham available at Vulcan Park. 

The visitor center houses an excellent museum devoted to the history of Vulcan and Birmingham and Jefferson County. Fun stuff for kids, too!

Efforts to create a museum devoted to the history of city and county began in 2004. The museum was eventually named the Birmingham History Center, and son Amos and I visited one of its many locations as it searched for a permanent home. Those rich collections were finally transferred to the Vulcan Park Foundation in 2017 and now form displays at this museum. 

I was glad to find this exhibit highlighting the extensive histories of theaters and theatrics in Birmingham. 

Ah, Tallulah...one of Alabama's best-known and most notorious exports. 

Over the years many postcards featuring Vulcan have been published. 

This postcard features "Vulcan--Forging by Moonlight" a photograph by Thomas Kingsley. You can see more of his Vulcan photos and other work here.

The day before the Vulcan visit we took the boys to Oak Mountain State Park for a little hiking--or running-- on one of the trails and a walk through the Alabama Wildlife Center. 

Some Family Photos Winter 1954

I've done a few posts on this blog exploring old family photographs. One included some photos taken at the Chandler Street house years after my toddler pictures below. I've also written one about a family vacation at the beach in 1956 and a group of family photos from the 1960s. 

Now we come to some examples from the winter of 1954. I turned two that March 3. Most of these photos were taken at my paternal grandparents' house at 1313 Chandler Street in Gadsden. We lived in Huntsville but visited Rosa Mae and Amos Wright numerous times over the years. 

My family is blessed--or cursed--with hundreds of photographs old and new. I'm sure I'll be exploring more subjects in the future. 

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I was always looking at rocks or sticks. 

I don't seem quite as happy here as in the first photograph.

Here I am with dad, Amos J. Wright, Jr. He probably took most of these photos, but presumably my grandfather took this one.

I presume that photographer's shadow is dad's. Someone else standing to the right? 

Look, dad, a shadow!

Prepare to get wet, dad!

My grandmother Rosa Mae Wright died in January 1997, shortly before her 97th birthday. My grandfather Amos J. Wright, Sr., had died in 1975. These color photos were taken the day in 1997 when my brother Richard and I came to get the final items out of the house. 

Here's the back yard where we all spent so much time over the years.

Richard is standing in the driveway close to where I was standing--or sitting--in some of those photos above 43 years earlier. 

Here I am as a young sprout between my paternal grandparents, Amos Jasper Wright, Sr., and Rosa Mae Wright. I'm not sure where this photo was taken but I'm looking pretty young here; I was born in March 1952. You can see my grandparents in 1918 in this post about my grandfather's World War I training in Auburn. 

A Family Vacation at the Beach in May 1956

This post is another in a series featuring old family photographs that give me an opportunity to discuss both family and other history. Let's see what's happening here.

I've been scanning a lot of these photos recently and at mom's house in Huntsville came across several batches of "Super Pak Snaps" with photos developed at "H and H Walgreen Agency Drugs". Interestingly I found nothing related to this phrase in the Walgreen company's rather lengthy history on its website, its Wikipedia entry or via a general Google search. 

Anyway, mom wrote inside the front cover of this one "Vacation 1956 (May, St. Teresa, Fla.)". She describes the place then as a fishing camp with little for her and a four year-old son to do but walk the beach and try to avoid all the trash in the dunes to get there. 

There is a funny family story attached to this trip. Dad would go fishing at night, often returning pretty late. Mom and I would go to bed until some of those massive flying Florida roaches appeared and tried to carry us away. Each night when he returned mom would tell dad about these things, but he would just scoff at her tales. About the fourth night, though, just after he had come home and gotten in bed, he felt one. Mom says he hopped out of bed, turned on the light and started packing. She kids that he might have left the two of us behind if she had not packed fast enough.

St. Teresa is on U.S. 98 east of Carabelle. The place is not too far from St. George Island where we have spent many vacations over the years. We've driven past Carabelle, but never as far as St. Teresa. Might have to do it this year and see what's there now.  

More comments are below some of the photos. 

Dad and I and the pier

Here and in the next two photos I'm exploring the shark-infested waters

Dad and I are having some more fun. Mom always claims she never knew how to work cameras, but she did a pretty good job here.

Now for some work on the beach

Mom and I and younger brother Richard, who would be born that October

And here are the cabins; I guess ours is the one in the foreground

St. Teresa is about 37 miles from Apalachicola, which is not visible on this map but is just west of Eastpoint. 

Some Family Photos from the 1960s

I recently posted an item on some family photographs I took, or at least were taken with, a camera I had during the 1960's. This post continues that saga, and don't worry--there are plenty more to come as we travel back in time via old family photographs.

In 1960 we moved from a house on Cloverdale Drive in Huntsville to one on Lakeview Drive in the Lakewood subdivision. At the time that section of northwest Huntsville across Memorial Parkway from Alabama A&M was booming. Both houses are still standing, by the way. I'll be doing some posts on photos taken at Cloverdale sometime soon.

As we can see from the front and rear views of the house, we must have recently moved into it. The front and back yards are dirt with no trees or the basement entrance cover and patio dad would later build out back. 

Some comments are below each photo. Based on the clothing, these pictures were probably taken during two different visits by my grandparents from Gadsden. 

Here's the front of the house. Based on the rocks and the dirt, these photos were taken soon after we moved in. I think my brother Richard spent much of our lives picking up the rocks in the front and back yards before they were sodded.  

I

Ah, Christmas back in the day. Popcorn strung and put on the tree. All those thin aluminum strips that went everywhere. That's our grandmother Rosa Mae Wright [1900-1997] in the lower right corner. The small desk to the right of the tree is in mom's den at her current house in southeast Huntsville. That lamp may still be around, too. I may be proudly showing off a new wristwatch. 

Another view with mom, Richard and the train set. These photos were probably taken after the Christmas festivities and the arrival from Gadsden of the grandparents. 

These folks may be getting tired of being photographed. That's the patriarch, Amos Jasper Wright, Sr. [1894-1975], on the left. That side table under the lamp is in mom's sun room now. 

Grandparents watch the grand kids play. 

Now here's dad--Amos Jasper Wright, Jr.--on the right with his parents and younger son Richard. I probably took the picture; mom was probably in the kitchen. 

On the wall behind them are mounted evidence of dad's early interest in Alabama archaeology. We still have these gems in the family. Mom, dad, Richard and I spent many winter Saturdays in the 1960s walking cotton fields and other areas in north Alabama surface collecting whole ones and pieces of projectile points [arrowheads], pottery sherds, etc. We would bring them home, and after washing dad would meticulously label them with the University of Alabama Office of Archaeological Research in Moundville's site number and the finder's initials. We picked up thousands of these things over the years. Much of that material has since been donated to OAR.

Dad was very active in archaeology in Alabama for many years. He served as President of the Alabama Archaeological Society and edited their Stones and Bones newsletter for a long period. In addition to several articles, his research resulted in two books: The McGillivray and McIntosh Traders: On the Old Southwest Frontier, 1716-1815 and Historic Indian Towns in Alabama, 1540-1838.

His research materials and collection of books on Alabama and Southeastern Indians were donated to the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Father and son talking about the guns, or maybe that crazy kid taking photographs. The bookshelf on the left is in my basement in Pelham; the other one is in mom's basement in Huntsville. 

These two photos show the family around the table. I guess I took this one, and dad took the one below. Mom stil has that hutch on the right. The table and chairs are still around, too.

And finally the back yard of that Lakeview Drive house. The door on the lower left led to the basement. Dad would later build a small room off that door for garden tools and our future beagle Duchess. That previous post I mentioned at the beginning has a photo or two of her on top of the roof. Dad would also put in a patio in this backyard.