Photo by Eric Keith / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Dennis Hart from Roderick Sign Co. works with a crew installing the original sign from the Pony Express Motel on the southwest corner of the Pony Express Museum Tuesday morning.

Photo by Eric Keith / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Clarence Miller created the neon portion of the Pony Express sign 55 years ago.

Workers began assembling a neon sign Tuesday that’s familiar to many in St. Joseph, even if the location seems a bit strange.

Clarence Miller, an 80-year-old glass blower and neon sign creator for Roderick Sign Co., said the Pony Express Motel sign is one of his oldest, if not the oldest, surviving sign still in use.

He created the sign in 1955 for the motel that was located northeast of the intersection of the Belt Highway and Frederick Boulevard. Each night drivers on the Belt could see the familiar Pony Express rider galloping on the sign. The motel was torn down in 2007 to make way for a new bank development project that brought Panera Bread and other shops to St. Joseph.

Now the neon sign will anchor the northeast corner of Ninth Street and Mitchell Avenue for the Pony Express Museum. People driving on Interstate 229 should be able to see the sign, said John Foley, a volunteer at the museum.

As part of its capital expansion campaign, the Pony Express Museum’s board decided to invest $18,000 in refurbishing the sign and installing it near the Pony Express Stables, said Cindy Daffron, the museum’s executive director.

The actual cost came to about $22,000.

Schultz & Stracener Electric provided more than $3,400 of the overage, Ms. Daffron said.

Roderick Sign brought in three trucks, including two with portable cranes, on Tuesday for the sign project.

“It’s not nearly as heavy as it is awkward,” said Dennis Hart, a Roderick Sign employee who operated one of the truck cranes involved in reassembling the sign at the museum.

The sign’s wording won’t be changed because, after all, the stables were a horse motel, Mr. Foley said.

An official unveiling and lighting ceremony will take place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Ms. Daffron said.

Jim Richard and Greg Hohman bought the motel site in 2006 and put the sign up for sale on eBay as local citizens started expressing an interest in preserving it. Larry Hausman arranged with the owners to donate the sign to the museum.

Museum staff and volunteers will begin their next major project this winter. Cooperation between the Pony Express and St. Joseph Museums Inc. means that the blacksmith and wheelwright shops will return to the museum as part of a living history exhibition.

Marshall White can be reached at marshall@npgco.com.