The origins of this park date to 1923, when the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham spearheaded the drive to create a comprehensive park system for Birmingham. In 1925, the Olmsted Brothers landscape firm revealed A Park System for Birmingham, envisioning a naturalistic mountain park that would feature the expansive and varied outlook from this ridge. The 4.5 acres on Red Mountain were secured by the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham in 1935, and the club also raised $45,000 to move Vulcan from the state fairgrounds to his 124-foot-tall sandstone pedestal overlooking Alabama's largest city. Vulcan Park opened to the public in 1938. The vision to connect this parcel to George Ward Park, two miles to the west, was not realized for another 94 years. In 2017, members of the world's largest Kiwanis Club marked its 100th anniversary with a $5 million campaign to light the statue and pedestal, restore Vulcan Park's north entrance, enhance the park's view from the city, create the Kiwanis Centennial Plaza and fountain, and complete the Kiwanis Vulcan Trail envisioned nearly a century earlier.