Sixty years later, Roy and Bob Kinsey insist it was no big deal.
"We were used to that kind of work," explained Roy Kinsey, who with brothers Bob and Warren scampered all over the 100-foot edifice -- without a safety harness.
"We were climbing on it like monkeys," Bob Kinsey recalled. "We never heard of a safety belt."
At the time, the Kinsey brothers were working for the company founded by their father, Roy: the Roy. C. Kinsey Sign Company, Inc., which was the star's contractor. The three brothers inherited the company in later years. The brothers are now retired, and the company no longer exists.
Roy Kinsey Sr. is deceased now. So is one of the three broth
ers, Warren Kinsey.
That leaves Bob Kinsey, 84, and Roy Kinsey Jr., 92, to recall how Roanoke's beloved symbol was put together six decades ago.
At least 25 individuals worked on the sign, Bob Kinsey estimated.
He said that as far as he knows, he and his brother are the only ones still alive.
One big star
The Mill Mountain Star was conceived as a Christmas decoration and marketing ploy, according to its registration form for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. (The star was included on the register in 1999.)
The Roanoke Merchants Association and the chamber of commerce raised the money to build it by sending a joint fundraising letter to hundreds of businesses and professional firms. The star was lighted for the first time on Thanksgiving eve, 1949.
The Kinseys said building a star on the mountaintop was their father's idea. Roy Kinsey Sr. pitched the idea to the merchants association, which liked it.
Despite its whopping size -- the star is 88 12 feet in diameter, while the steel frame is 100 feet high -- it is not the biggest neon sign the Kinseys ever built. That distinction belongs to the Dan River Mills sign in Danville, which was 50 feet high and 248 feet long with 20-foot letters, Bob Kinsey said.
The star's architect was their father, the brothers said. The steel framing was designed by Bob Little of Roanoke Iron and Bridge Work, which also built the frame. The star's sturdy frame has seven
legs, each of which is bolted to the concrete foundation.
The signmakers made the 2,000 feet of neon out of 4-foot lengths of Corning glass, as well as the foundation, which is composed of 10 blocks of concrete weighing together 500,000 pounds.
Others who worked on the star included the Jefferson Electric Co. and Roanoke Ready Mix Concrete.
Don't look down
The Mill Mountain Star is actually three stars of different sizes mounted on the same frame. The gaps between the stars allow air to pass through, making the structure less vulnerable to wind and storms.
The colors were red and white in the early years, but the color blue was added to the middle, smallest star for the nation's bicentennial celebration in 1976, the Kinseys said.
The concrete, neon tubing and 30-plus electrical transformers were all hauled to the mountaintop in the fall of 1949 via a narrow, crooked access road that looped over itself, creating an underpass too low for the bigger pieces to pass underneath. As a result, the pieces of the steel frame and the crane were brought up instead on an old wagon road on the back side of the mountain, Bob Kinsey said.
Once the frame was assembled on the mountaintop, the neon tubes were tied to it with copper wire. Workers would climb into the frame, and then drop a rope end back to the ground, to which someone would attach a length of neon tubing to be pulled up. The neon tubes could be up to 9 feet long.
The scariest part of the project was tying neon onto the outermost points of the star, with nothing but sky beyond, Roy Kinsey said. But despite a lack of modern-day safety precautions, "No one got hurt, no one fell off it," he said. "I guess we were pretty agile then."
News accounts noted the cold and windy November weather in the days leading up to the star's illumination, but the brothers said the weather was never really a factor in building it.
"We had good days and bad days," Bob Kinsey said. "There were a few days when we probably just didn't work. But not many."
Though master of ceremonies James Moore praised the workers the night the star was illuminated, news stories the next day made no mention of the star-builders by name. Instead, they credited the merchants association and chamber of commerce.
"We never had our name on it. We didn't try to cash in on it," Bob Kinsey said.
The Mill Mountain Star cost $27,000 to build in 1949. The city spent $60,000 to paint and repair it 50 years later.
Miracle on Mill Mountain
On the night the star was lit, a Greene Memorial United Methodist Church choir sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." Former Rep. Clifton Woodrum compared the new star to the Star of Bethlehem.
The Kinseys had also made 100 3-foot neon stars, to be hung downtown. The miniature stars continued to be used as downtown Christmas decorations for years.
Actor and former Salemite John Payne, best known for playing the lawyer who defended Santa Claus in the 1947 Christmas classic, "Miracle on 34th Street," had been on Mill Mountain earlier that day, posing for photographs with workers, including the Kinsey brothers, and climbing partway up the steel frame.
Three area radio stations did live reports on the star-lighting, which occurred at 8:22 p.m.
Some 250 guests braved cold winds to watch the event from the mountaintop, while thousands more watched the star light up from the valley below. Loudspeakers carried the mountaintop program to four city parks.
Traffic came to a standstill when the star came on, according to The Roanoke Times. Cars were stopped bumper-to-bumper for half a mile on Brandon Avenue. Many people got out of their cars to gawk. An Eastern Airlines pilot, Arthur Robertson, was the first to report seeing it from the air:
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he said.
In spite of all the hoopla, the Kinsey brothers said they never expected the star to still be around 60 years later, or to mean so much to people in the valley.
"It just grew on the public like gangbusters," Bob Kinsey said. "We had no idea it would still be there and be what it is."
VIRGINIA IS FOR STAR CITY LOVERS
Mill Mountain Star
- Address:
- 210 Reserve Ave., Roanoke, VA
- Directions:
- I-81 exit 143. I-581 exit 6. Right onto Elm Ave./Rte 24. Pass hospital, left at 2nd light onto Jefferson St. Left at 4th light onto Walnut Ave., which becomes Parkway Spur Rd. At top of mountain, right at Mill Mountain Park sign.
- Hours:
- Park closes at 9, star is turned off at midnight. (Call to verify)
- Phone:
- 540-853-1133
-
Roanoke is the only city with a mountain within its limits. It is also known as the "Star City of the South" and "All American City" and "Capital of the Blue Ridge" and formerly named Big Lick - for the salt marshes where the Buffalo and other animals gathered and the Indians who were there to hunt them. For more interesting info on Roanoke and it's history click here.
Roanoke Star is 25 minute drive from The Claiborne House Bed and Breakfast. We recommend the drive up Mill Mountain to see this spectacular view of the Roanoke Valley. It is a terrific bike ride up if you are interested.
Photos courtesy of Bob Kinsey. Article from The Roanoke Times. 
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