For much of the last half of the 20th century, Joe Craig drove around Bessemer, Alabama without a car.

Instead, Craig held tight to a steering wheel he pretended to drive through west Jefferson County’s Marvel City, zipping back and forth through the bustling industrial city, arms outstretched, year after year, as the Birmingham area’s fortunes rose and fell with the rise and fall of the steel industry.

Known as “Steering Wheel Joe,” or the “Steering Wheel Man,” Craig parked his steering wheel as if it were an entire car, preached in the streets and supposedly ticketed cars wrongly parked in spaces designated for people with disabilities.

Much is unknown about Steering Wheel Joe, but many who lived in Bessemer back then still fondly remember Craig. They remember that Bessemer, its people, businesses and police, all looked after Steering Wheel Joe.

“He was very unique,” recalled city council administrative assistant Angela Coleman. “He was driving. He was in his own world, living his best life.”

People respected that, and his steering wheel.

“Bessemer didn’t allow anyone to park if he parked first,” former city council president Dorothy Davidson posted on Facebook.

Retired Bessemer police captain Andy Bellanca met Craig after joining the force in 1970. Several years earlier, Bellanca often saw Craig driving near Bellanca’s father’s grocery store.

Bellanca once asked his father why the man was acting that way. “He said, ‘Well, he thinks he’s driving a car,’” Bellanca recalled.

At that time, Bellanca said, Steering Wheel Joe wore suit jackets and would trade his steering wheel for a Bible to preach.

“Fast foward to ’71,” Bellanca continued, “and someone had given him an Air Force jacket and a cap."

The rookie cop encountered the uniformed Craig while walking his beat. The patrolman lightheartedly referred to Craig as “Officer Joe.”

“It was as if someone had flipped on a light switch,” Bellanca recalled. “From that day on, he was ‘Officer Joe Craig’ and I was ‘Chief Bellanca.’”

Bessemer Police Captain Andy Bellanca retires from force. In this 2003 photo, Bellanca indicates what will take up part of his retirement time. News Staff Photo/Jerry Ayres. Robert Gordon/Reporter.bn

One night while on patrol, Bellanca’s wife called him from their home at the time in Bessemer. “She said, ‘Andy, there’s a man standing outside watching the house and I don’t know what he’s doing.'”

Bellanca rushed home, only to find Steering Wheel Joe. “He said, ‘Hey, Chief. I’m guarding the house.’"

Bessemer guarded Steering Wheel Joe, too.

Businesses around town fed him for free. When a driver crushed his wheel, it was quickly replaced with a brand new Cadillac steering wheel, several people said.

Few know the details of his non-driving life. Few, if any, fully understand exactly why he acted the way he did.

Craig lived with his mother until his death, but the people who knew Craig best are likely dead, Bellanca said.

Although the facts of his life might be forever lost, Steering Wheel Joe left a mark on generations of Bessemer folks and they love to share memories of him.

“He would tell us to do the right thing and stay out of trouble,” recalled Melvin Murray, who grew up in Bessemer in the 1960s. “He always had something positive to say.”

Well, not always.

“If you pulled your car in the parking space over his steering wheel, he would run over and get in your face,” said Larry Fort Garner, who saw Craig in the 1950s. “He never caused any trouble unless you parked over his steering wheel.”

The only real trouble he caused, Garner said, was complaining to the driver who would realize he or she had violated an unwritten Bessemer law and move their vehicle.

“We had to back out and find another space," one woman recently wrote on Facebook. "My Mom cussing the whole way!!!”

Craig’s last drive ended in tragedy.

No one seems to remember exactly when it happened, but the general consensus is that it was in the 1980s.

After roughly 30 years of driving, if not more, Craig was killed by a tractor trailer near the bowling alley on the Bessemer Super Highway. Bellanca estimates Craig was in his late 50s.

Decades after Steering Wheel Joe stopped cruising the city, all that seems to be left of him are fading memories and a picture taken by one of Alabama’s most famous photographers.

In 1961, legendary civil rights photographer Spider Martin shot a photograph of Craig and his beloved wheel. Raised in neighboring Hueytown, Martin’s photos of the 1965 Selma demonstrations have been seen around the world. Martin died in 2003.

The photo hung for years on a wall of a now-closed Bessemer hot dog joint. Marc Gilliland, 57, took a picture of that photo and shared it on Facebook, inspiring many to share memories of the Steering Wheel Man.

“He was kind of weird, but we all are,” Gilliland said. “He was a gentleman. He was an absolute Bessemer mainstay. I loved him when I was a kid.”

Bellanca, who retired from the police department in 2003, has a copy of that picture.

It was given to him to by then-Jefferson County Circuit Judge Mac Parsons. Parsons, who died in 2011, kept the photo in his office.

“As mean as people can be, no one ever picked on Joe. The community always looked after him,” Bellanca said.

Nearly 50 years after the two met, the veteran lawman still wants to solve one great mystery of Steering Wheel Joe Craig’s life.

“I’d love to know how many miles he put on those feet."