Editing Vulcan statue (section)

===Centennial facelift===
[[File:Vulcan Statue January 1990.jpg|thumb|left|Photograph of ''Vulcan''  dated to January 1990. The photograph shows how the statue looked prior to the 1999–2004 restoration.]]
To celebrate Birmingham's centennial, the area around the statue was given a $1&nbsp;million facelift in 1971.  The original tower was clad in Alabama [[marble]] with an elevator and observation deck added. A covered walkway also connected a gift shop and snack bar.  ''Vulcan'' was repainted a rust red  a few years later.  ''Vulcan'' was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] on July 6, 1976.

Unfortunately, the statue itself had, when originally placed atop the pedestal, been filled up to the chest with [[concrete]] and had begun to deteriorate seriously due to different expansion and contraction rates of concrete versus cast iron. By 1990, an engineering study found that the statue was in danger of collapse.