SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - On most days, drivers at the corner of Gloria Drive and 43rd Avenue can rely on a fully functioning traffic light to keep things moving. But for a while, that job belonged to a turkey named Frank.

Joseph Reichmuth Park, once known as Munger Lake, still behaves like one during rainy winters, when its low-lying soccer fields fill with water and attract flocks of wildlife. Last year, a group of wild turkeys took up residence. When the flock eventually moved on, one bird decided he preferred the city life.

He chose Sacramento’s Southland Park Fire Station 13.

The lone turkey began roosting on the roof of the station at 6135 Gloria Drive. Fire crews on different shifts offered various names, Fred and Tony, but the name “Frank” stuck.

Frank quickly established his territory at the nearby intersection. Despite the presence of a perfectly good traffic signal, he appointed himself traffic controller. Firefighters inside the station would hear an eruption of honking horns. When they stepped outside, they often found Frank planted squarely in the roadway, cars frozen in every direction.

He had strong opinions about vehicles. Brown UPS trucks and the neighborhood mail carrier ranked high on his list of offenders. No one ever clocked his speed, but Frank could match the posted limit while charging down the center of the street, wings flapping, feathers flying and drivers retreating.

According to firefighter Eric Pohl, Frank also had a flair for presentation. He was caught more than once admiring his reflection in the station’s bright red fire engines. When trucks returned from calls, Frank was there to greet them, occasionally even hopping on for a short ride up the driveway.

He tried entering the station once. The firefighters escorted him out. He never attempted that again.

In January, Frank was struck by a car and broke his left wing, ending his rooftop flights. The Station 13 crew made him a bed near the rear door and kept an eye on him. He continued to forage in Reichmuth Park, supplemented by breadcrumbs from firefighters and birdseed from a neighborhood resident who stopped by regularly.

Near the end of February, Frank was attacked by a dog. The last sighting of the now-grounded traffic officer was of him running at full speed away from the station.

Frank had become more than a familiar face; he was a neighborhood legend. At Station 13, his memory will linger long after the bay doors close each night. And in Southland Park, the children and families who came to visit him will not soon forget the warmth, laughter and quiet joy he brought to their lives.

All firefighters know that on Dec. 7, 1736, Benjamin Franklin didn’t just help fight fires; he helped reinvent how communities protect themselves. That day, he co-founded the Union Fire Company, better known as the “Bucket Brigade,” the first formally organized all-volunteer fire company in the American colonies. Modeled after Boston’s Mutual Fire Societies, it borrowed their structure but not their limitations. While Boston’s groups protected only their dues-paying members, Franklin’s brigade showed up for everyone. In doing so, it ignited something even more enduring than a fire: the American tradition of neighbors helping neighbors.

Firefighters also know that the story about Benjamin Franklin wanting the national bird to be a turkey is a myth. In a famous letter criticizing the eagle on the Great Seal, Franklin called the bald eagle “a bird of bad moral character” and described the turkey as “a much more respectable bird... though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage.”

Frank never ran for national office, but he certainly knew how to work a crowd. He posed for more than a few photo opportunities, and firefighter Pohl even captured the celebrity bird in a short video clip on Facebook.

But at Fire Station 13, he was exactly that; a little vain, a little silly and unquestionably a bird of courage.