(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - Franklin Theater got Clark Kent got this phone booth, flying out his Superman, it's done up as a movie theater ticket lobby adjacent to the barbershop, beauty shop, (upbeat music) candy counter, candy machines, popcorn machines.

(upbeat music) The "Mayberry" theme a lot of people touches on with Barney and Otis has this one bullet and the motorcycle and the siren.

It's got the old air siren that (siren blaring) (upbeat music) Drove by the building, it had been setting empty for about 20, 25 years.

It's a school building built in 1936.

It was a grade school 1-6 and it was open till the mid-'70s when it closed.

I bought the building in 1996, started collecting in 1999.

So yeah, 20, 25 years of collecting and had the building 30 years this year.

(upbeat music) When I bought the building, all I had was one automobile, a 1926 Studebaker car.

And I worked on the building for a few years and then when I brought the car down here, I wound up buying a gas pump to set beside it.

And then that led to more purchases.

Currently we have a transportation display, which consists of a few automobiles.

It actually has a Pekin wagon.

And the Pekin wagon is, Pekin had a wagon company here in the 1800s.

They had a plow company as well.

They made all kinds of farm equipment and these all date back in the 1800s.

(upbeat music) We've got various transportation modes from motorcycles to many bikes to just a little bit of everything in the transportation line.

Goes into a gasoline business, gas station with actual mannequins, period correct clothing.

(upbeat music) (bell dinging) Actually have a car with the, we call it the world's oldest oil change.

He'd been under there about 15 years, but the car actually overheats here.

Got a lot of the detail with that, all period correct clothing, testing equipment.

You leave the gas station area and then we go into a movie theater ticket lobby.

There's a barber-beauty shop next door to that.

You go into a '50s diner that's all detailed out how it would've been back in the day into a Pekin and history room.

Shoe shine shop next door to that and then into a toy store.

(upbeat music) The gas station I named after my dad, which he did.

His name was Paul.

And he had an Owen station.

So the gas and oil collectibles I kind of got into because it brought back memories of my childhood and my dad and my brother as well.

I've always had kind of an interest in old stuff, antique stuff, architecture, you know, I think that's part of the reason I acquired the building for the architecture and I really thought it was a really neat building.

I guess it just gets in your blood and you just start collecting and then one thing leads to another and that's kind of how this developed.

You know, a barber chair led to a barber shop.

You know that purchase usually led to another venue.

The diner the same way.

(upbeat music) The potato chip cans, potato chip used to come in the metal cans instead of the bags as we know them today.

The best part, I guess was spending time with my daughter when I bought the building.

She was 10 years old and we've worked at this together for 20, 25 years now.

And we've had a lot of fun with it as just her and I as an event that we did.

And we still share that to this day.

She helps out with a lot of the tours and stuff we do.

My daughter says that I'm not allowed to bring anything else in or purchase any more stuff because it's full, but when I sneak in she doesn't know, doesn't hurt anything.

(upbeat music) Everybody comes through here, pulls something that they remember.

A childhood memory or... That's the fun part.

Just the biggest word they use is wow.

(laughs) And there's a lot to see and they have a good time with it.

But our average tour, depending on the group, it was around two hours to get through it.

Like I say, we have returned people every year.

We've had people from other countries, you know, a lot of the states and the United States have been here.

(upbeat music) I guess it didn't seem like work.

It was more fun.

It was something I was really looking forward to doing.

It was a lot of work, so I get the enjoyment out of it now, of sharing it with people.

It's fun meeting the people that's gotta be the biggest reward.

And seeing them leave here a lot happier than they were when they arrived.

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