The warm glow of neon nostalgia greets visitors inside the National Neon Sign Museum in downtown The Dalles.

The museum, which opened in 2019, contains an array of colorful, glowing signs from the Depression era to the post-World War II neon heyday, including a gallery of mock storefronts mimicking a 1950s Main Street.

“Signs are very similar to songs,” said museum creator David Benko. “You could hear a song that you haven’t heard for two years, three years, 10 years, and it will bring back memories. Signs are very much the same way.”

Benko’s collection includes some familiar advertising icons – the racing dog of Greyhound bus, the Mobilgas Pegasus and Elsie the Cow from Borden’s Ice Cream. There are also some unusual pieces, including a five-foot tall margarita glass of glowing bubbles and an animated welder who once advertised a welding supply company in Chicago.

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The museum’s contents are plucked from Benko’s large, private collection of vintage signs and advertising. Benko, who grew up in Kirkland, Washington, said he’d been a collector of antiques since he was a teen, scooping up things like juke boxes, metal signs and telephone insulators in “picking” trips across rural America, which he’d later sell or trade among other collectors.

“Probably by 8 or 9 years old, I was collecting things,” Benko said. “I started with small things. Small things turned into bigger things. By the time I graduated from high school, I had almost 100 gas pumps in my mom’s backyard.”

He bought his first neon sign when he was about 16 years old, “and then I was just really hooked on neon,” he said.

That interest led to an apprenticeship in the sign industry. In 1988, Benko founded his own neon repair company, Rocket City Neon, currently based in Camas, Washington.

“What’s on display at the museum is maybe five to 10% of my collection,” he said, “but one of the great things about that is we have the opportunity to always be changing things.”

In addition to the showcases of lighted displays, the museum tells the history of electric lighting and the development of neon tubing. Among the artifacts in the collection is a 1911 neon tube created by French engineer Georges Claude, the first to patent neon lighting.

“I have pieces of neon that still light today that were made a hundred years ago,” Benko said.

Neon lighting works by electrifying neon, or another noble gas, inside a sealed vacuum tube. That’s one thing museum visitors will learn: not all neon signs are lit by neon. Neon gas glows red, while argon or mercury glow blue, and helium produces a shade of orange-tinged white. Various shades from pink to green are created by color coatings on the glass tube encasing the gas.

The neon sign heyday stretched from the 1920s through the 1950s, Benko said. By the mid-1960s, polycarbonate plastic became the less expensive (and less breakable) lighted sign material of choice.

But neon lights still hold a unique visual pull, best experienced in the museum’s gallery rooms lit solely by their glow.

The museum is located inside the former Elks Temple, built in 1910. The Dalles Urban Renewal District purchased the once-grand three-story building, which had become unused and dilapidated, in 2015 and entered into a development agreement with Benko for the site. He was deeded the property with the promise of restoring the building and renovating it into a museum for his neon collection.

The museum is still in its infancy, with more exhibits to come. Benko is currently undergoing a basement renovation that will include a classroom space and neon shop where apprentice workers can get hands-on experience creating and repairing neon tubing.

The second floor of the museum occupies what was once the Elks’ ballroom. The dance floor is now encircled by false storefront facades lit by neon, including an electronics store, jewelry shop and full-size replica of a Town Pride Frozen Custard stand. The space can be rented for private events.

Ironically, the National Neon Sign Museum, housed inside a historic building, doesn’t have any neon signs on its exterior. But last year, Benko installed four of his vintage signs around The Dalles, on the outside of the Sunshine Mill Artisan Plaza & Winery, behind the Last Stop Saloon, on Sigman’s Flowers & Gifts and on the Mid-Columbia Medical Center Financial Office. He hopes to add more over time, creating a walking tour of vintage signs throughout downtown.

“It’s one thing to see a sign on a platform inside of a building calling it artwork,” he said. “But really, to me, signs were made to be on buildings. They were made to be outdoors.”

The National Neon Sign Museum, 200 E. Third St. in The Dalles, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, starting in April, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays in March. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $5 for students. Group tours with discounts are available by appointment. For more information, visit nationalneonsignmuseum.org or call (541) 370-2242.

-- Samantha Swindler, sswindler@oregonian.com, @editorswindler

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