(cheerful music) - You're working with colors, you know, colored glasses, you're working with all these different things.

There's people that paint or draw, but neon is a very unique type of medium.

And so, for me, I got really excited about it.

(cheerful music continues) My name is David Benko, and I'm the executive director here at the National Neon Sign Museum in The Dalles, Oregon.

I saw an early piece of neon, and I kind of got fascinated by it.

I turned out to be a pretty good tube bender.

McMenamins was a really good customer of mine.

I made many, many signs for them, and that was what I ended up doing for 38 years.

(cars rumbling) (kid shouting) - One day, David came home and he asked if I was interested in moving to The Dalles.

He was captivated with a building.

We looked at the building, and he had a vision immediately walking around it.

He saw what he could do with it.

"The theater is going to go here.

I'm going to have a gallery here.

I'm going to put this sign here."

So, that's how we ended up in The Dalles.

- We start with a 15-minute film on how neon signs are made.

When that is over, we give a tour.

Can't tell the story of neon without acknowledging that from the 1880s to the 1920s, it was the light bulb that changed the face of downtown.

I was able to first find and then purchase George Claude's 1910 patent tube.

So this is the first piece of neon that ever existed in the world.

This is what many believe to be the first piece of neon manufactured in North America.

This is clear glass with pure neon gas inside of it, just pure neon.

How do you get all the different colors?

Right here, this is clear glass with blue.

Right here, this is foggy yellow.

Blue and yellow make green.

(lively music) And so all of these signs that are in here originally were far more animated than they are.

And so I'm turning everything back into being just nothing but animation, and we're renaming it the Attention Deficit Gallery.

(lively music ending) - One day, a gentleman comes running through the door, and he's like, "I have something super important to tell you.

I just heard this great show on OPB."

And he said, "It's all about how the carousel still needs a home, and Restore Oregon is looking for a home."

(sweet music) The Jantzen Beach Carousel was a big surprise to all of us.

We got a phone call, and they said, "Congratulations, you guys are going to have a new object in your collection.

It is the Jantzen Beach Carousel, crafted by C.W.

Parker in Leavenworth, Kansas."

And we were like, "Wow, that's amazing."

(sweet music continues) There are 72 horses that are four abreast on the carousel.

It's the largest in North America.

Each of the horses are in families of four, and they are placed the largest to the smallest on the carousel.

And we have about a third of them currently in production.

(sweet music continues) - My dad was a woodworker since I grew up.

My brother is still a woodworker here in The Dalles.

And once I've heard about this just the other day, I jumped right on it.

- It took us about a year to start training a regular team.

And for us to learn too, because there wasn't anybody on the team who'd restored a carousel before.

- These guys are impressive.

The craftsmanship and workmanship on these ponies are phenomenal.

(bright music) - They're works of art as far as I'm concerned.

Kind of a national treasure.

I just feel very honored to be able to work on them, and to kind of restore them to their... to their beauty.

(bright music continues) - Knowing that there was so many features of this that connect back to what we're doing at the museum, helping people see that you can take something that is weathered and worn and you can make it beautiful again without losing any of the integrity that it once had.

(bright music continues) Every single person that works on these, whether they're a child coming into paint or a retired person coming into sand, everybody feels like these horses are now part of their life in a different way, and that's a story, and I like that.

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