THE DALLES, Ore.—“All things, physical and material, have the capacity to be renewed.”
So says Kirsten Benko, director of education for the National Neon Sign Museum in The Dalles, Oregon, which hugs the Columbia River Gorge ninety minutes east of Portland.
The museum she founded with her husband, David, is home to twenty thousand square feet of Americana lovingly restored to its former gleam—rare and beautiful signs hawking erstwhile products such as Red Goose Shoes, Polly Gas, and Pevely Super Test Ice Cream.
Now comes a refurbishment of a different sort: the iconic Jantzen Beach Carousel, built in 1921 to delight families along California’s Venice Beach pier, repossessed for lack of payment, and moved in 1928 to its namesake amusement park in Portland.
The meticulous restoration plan calls for every crack, chip, and creak in the centuryold carousel to be mended. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer ride. Designed by “Carnival King” C.W. Parker, the glorious merrygo- round is three stories tall and sixty-seven feet wide. It spun tirelessly for kids until 1970, when it became the centerpiece of a new shopping mall. There, the eighty-two horses (four abreast) galloped onward through the mid-1990s, when a renovation moved them to the mall’s food court. They took their last spin there in 2012.
For years, the carousel’s many parts have been protected in a warehouse run by Restore Oregon, the nonprofit working to save it. Unpainted drywall backs the racks of carved wooden horses—heads raised, mouths open, horseshoes lifted high—while a glass jar holds stamped tokens ready to be plunked into the machinery once again.
“There’s a whole generation of kids who never got to ride it,” Restore Oregon’s Stephanie Brown recently told Portland TV. “I would like to remedy that.”
Plans call for the carousel to be installed in a glass-fronted pavilion adjacent to the museum. In the meantime, visitors can watch painters work on restoring the ponies—and maybe even join in.
