We have visited the Vulcan trail located in Birmingham, Alabama many times. If you visit the more famous Vulcan statue on Red Mountain you can see the trail by looking north and down to the trail. The trail is only about 200 feet from the statue. It is easy walking as you can see in the picture below. It contains several geocaches if you are into that hobby. The trail follows the path of a former train track used to shuttle iron ore mined from Red Mountain for use at Birmingham’s many iron ore furnaces back in the day. Remains of these loading chutes can be seen on the trail. Wonderful views of downtown Birmingham await through the heavily wooded slopes of Red Mountain. The city of Birmingham might have remained a sleepy little town if not for the occurrence of three resources found in the area: coal, iron ore, and fluxing stone. These three mineral resources enabled Birmingham to become the leading producer of iron and steel in the South. The Vulcan Trail follows a stretch of the former Birmingham Mineral Railroad, a 156-mile loop that followed the Red Mountain Iron Ore seam from Ruffner Mountain to Bessemer, enabling the distribution of mined ore to the many foundries in the area. See more pictures in our GALLERY.
