It's not news that the face of rural America has been undergoing great changes over the past couple of generations, but sometimes those changes take place slowly and almost imperceptibly, until one day it's like you awaken from a slumber and find your surroundings suddenly less familiar. Or perhaps you move away, and come back many years later to find that the pictures of place in your mind no longer bear close resemblance to the place as it now is. So it is with the old heritage barns throughout the Midwest and much of rural America. They are disappearing. Among the most iconographic of those old barns, for me at least, are the ones painted with Mail Pouch Tobacco advertisements: Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco. Treat Yourself To The Best
Perhaps you are entirely a creature of The Big City, urban to the core, and have never even driven through rural America. But anyone who lives in the Midwest or other regions where there is still significant farming is familiar with these barns. In many cases they were and are local landmarks of a sort, and as eye catching and evocative of place as a covered bridge or a lone, majestic 150 year old oak tree in the middle of a field.
From around 1890 until 1992 the Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco company hired barn painters to fan out across rural America and strike various bargains with farmers in exchange for painting their barns with the company's advertisement. During the Sixties there were some 20,000 Mail Pouch barns. The most famous of those barn painters was a man from Belmont, Ohio, by the name of Harley Warrick. He was also the last of their barn painters when he passed away in 2000. Today there are perhaps a thousand of those barns left across the country.
If ever a diary cries out for imagery, this one does. I'd love to liven it up with some photos of particularly attractive old barns, but alas, I've never forced myself to learn the photobucket thing. Perhaps I can cajole Blueyedace to do a photo diary sometime on barns, or the readers here can post some photos of their own in the comments. At the end I will post a link to a great website that has archived scores of photos of these barns, neatly categorized by state and county. I encourage you to go there and browse them.
The fate of America's antique barns naturally is linked to that of its farm economy. Since the 1930's, over 4 million farms have disappeared, as agriculture has been transformed into a more industrial, large scale endeavor. On top of that, barns have become increasingly superfluous to those farms that remain. Fewer farmers keep livestock or horses that need shelter and a place to store hay. Many have been torn down to make room for additional crops, or simply allowed to become decrepit and fall down. Still others have been carefully dismantled by builders who prize the old roof beam timbers and wood siding for use in upscale "rustic-styled" home construction. There is, however, a number of historical preservation organizations in many states who are seeking to save some of the remaining barns by designating them as historical and culturally significant landmarks. In 1974 Congress specifically designated the Mail Pouch barns as National Landmarks.
Harley Warrick got his start as a barn painter when he was 21 years old. He'd just finished a stint in the army in 1947, and returned home to his family's farm in Ohio. Just two months after returning home his father decided to have his barn painted by a Mail Pouch crew, and in Harley's own words:
I was just talking away with them and they said we need somebody on one of our crews and I thought, that’s better than milking 27 Jerseys every night and morning.Harley never quit that job. He retired in 1993, but continued painting and touching up these barns almost up to his death.
The work may seem prosaic, but it was more demanding than it seems. Each barn presented its own challenges in terms of size, configuration, window openings and topography. Then there was the elements. Peak barn painting season was often hot and humid. There were biting horse flies, sweat bees and the occasional hornet's nest to contend with. Harley and his cohorts mostly worked free hand, using a carpenters crayon and long yardsticks to mark straight lines. He mixed his own paint on weekends at his home in large containers to be used later. He told one interviewer that "the first 1000 barns were pretty hard, but after that I got the hang of it."
Harley painted barns throughout the Midwest and into New England, and the work was what would today be called itinerant. Barn painters would work in teams of two, and travel from county to county over several states. Sometimes they would sleep in their trucks or camp out to save on expenses. He could paint a barn in about 6 hours, and on a really good day he and his teammate could do 2 complete barns. Harley would do the lettering, and his helper would paint the black background. When they started off, they earned $32 per week in wages. Farmers were usually paid just a small sum each year for the signage.
There was a lull in his career after Congress passed the "Highway Beautification Act of 1965", in response to Lady Bird Johnson's advocacy for "making America beautiful". The Act prohibited advertising within 600 feet of a highway, in response to the proliferation of unsightly billboards across the country. Many barns fell within that perimeter and thus could not be painted. After Congress designated the Mail Pouch barns as National Landmarks in 1974, however, Warrick was off and running again at full steam...painting new barns and touching up ones that he had painted before. These barns typically required retouching every 4 to 5 years to keep them looking fresh.
Mail Pouch was purchased by Swisher Intl Co., of "Swisher Sweets" cigar infamy, and they discontinued the barn painting program in 1992. Warrick continued to do freelance work touching up existing Mail Pouch barns until the late 90's. There are still a handful of barn painters out there, but they work as artisans, painting whatever design you ask for.
Not too long ago a solar company in Merced, California commissioned a local artist to paint their logo on the side of a prominent barn in the area. She had never done anything of that nature before. As she was painting the barn, truckers driving by along the adjacent highway would honk and wave at her, and passenger cars would sometimes stop for a moment to watch. She was amazed by the feedback she received, and no sooner was it finished until the company, APG Solar, started getting phone calls. Some were sold sales leads...many were just people who felt compelled to call the company up and say "thank you" for painting the barn. Such is the attraction these barns hold upon some of us.
When Mr Warrick passed away, several major newspapers across the country ran nice obituaries sketching in some details of his life. Their readers probably weren't familiar with his name, but they most certainly were familiar with his barns. As he progressed over the course of his career, he began initialing his work, and later signing his barns "H. Warrick." They are national keepsakes, in my opinion.
His daughter, when asked for some words upon the occasion of his passing, said:
He would always say if you could find a job that you would do without being paid, that’s what you should do. I don’t think he really thought about it as work. It was just what he did.
You can see some of his barns at the following website. And if you have any pics of your own, I'd love to see them posted below. Thank you for reading.