The mayor of Birmingham, Ala., wants to see the big, metal "Magic City" sign that once greeted the city's visitors resurrected -- if it can be found, that is.

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The landmark sign proclaiming "Birmingham, The Magic City" stood near the city's old Terminal Station from 1926 until it was taken down in the mid-1950s. Now Mayor William Bell wants to find it and put it back up, The Birmingham News reported recently. Bell says he got a tip the sign is in pieces in a warehouse somewhere in the city, the newspaper said.

"We want to try to get it back and resurrect this sign," Bell said. "I remember it. We want to bring it back to the Magic City."

Chuck Faush, the mayor's chief of staff, says someone sent Bell a letter with a photo of the sign, which was last known to have been stored at Fair Park.

"Now that the mayor has enough information that the pieces may exist, he's going to ask for a real campaign to go out and try to locate them," Faush told the News.

"This is going on hunches and what people say. He wants to see the sign back up."

But Jim Baggett, an archivist at the Birmingham Public Library, isn't so sure the historic sign still exists. He found a newspaper article reporting the sign's dismantling, which had been necessary because it was in disrepair and pieces had fallen on cars.

"I do recall the fellow they contracted with was a scrap metal guy, so I'm sure he sold it off by the pound," he said.