In 1931 the university did not have the estimated $60,000 required to cast the contemplated 26-foot high statue (including appropriate marble base) and pay for its setting of a semicircular background of pink Tennessee marble on the front lawn of the Hoskins Library. The Volunteer was, however, adopted as the official symbol of the university, was copyrighted in 1932, and began appearing on university products (class rings, stationery, etc.). It was trademarked in 1956.
In 1937 Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin B. Cates gave UT a triangular plot of land in the intersection of Cumberland and Main Avenues to be called Cates Park. The park was to be the location of a 12-foot high Volunteer Statue on a base of Tennessee marble, for which funds were to be raised. Insufficient funds were donated to this project. A 1955 campaign for funds to install a 12-foot high Volunteer Statue on the lawn of the university center also failed to generate sufficient funds. In 1960 the Campus Beautification Commission began a campaign with a $200 grant from the All Students’ Council to raise $35,000 to place the statue either in front of Ayres Hall or the Carolyn P. Brown Memorial University Center, but insufficient funds were raised.
During the massive expansion of the campus to the west, a plaza suitable for a Volunteer Statue was planned. In May 1967 Project Volunteer—a campaign to raise the $25,000 to place the Volunteer Statue in Circle Park—was announced by the senior class. By the campaign’s official end date, $276 had been raised, $100 of which had been contributed by President Holt. The university allocated the funds, and the Bedi-Rassey Art Foundry of Brooklyn, New York, was selected to do the casting.
Originally scheduled for unveiling during 1967 Homecoming, delays in receiving the cast statue from the foundry and the need to modify the Circle Park landscaping in order to provide an appropriate place for the statue moved the unveiling to April 19, 1968. The statue was unveiled by Alan Cates, president of the 1967 senior class—the group that initiated a fund-raising campaign to have the statue placed.
In October 1990 a vandal (or vandals) wrote antinuclear slogans on the Volunteer Statue and the Europa and the Bull sculpture and splashed both with orange and brown paint. Following cleaning of the Volunteer Statue, a small explosion in its base occurred, which toppled the statue on Friday, October 5—the date of UT’s first Fall Break. The eternal flame was also severed from its arm. The sculpture was repaired and replaced before classes began on Monday, but the statue appeared to be wearing a thin gold bracelet until the weld weathered.