I learned something interesting this week. Well, it’s interesting to me.
One of the individuals responsible for painting all those Mail Pouch advertisements on barns across the Midwest and Appalachia was a fellow named Harley Warrick.
His name is well known among barn enthusiasts and for good reason.
During a career that spanned about 55 years, Mr. Warrick painted or retouched over 20,000 barns in thirteen states. He was actually the last of the Mail Pouch painters when he retired.
What I didn’t know is that Mr. Warrick was from Londonderry, Ohio, a burg just a few minutes from my home. He grew up on a dairy farm before serving in World War II. In 1946, he decided that painting barns sounded better than milking cows.
These iconic barns had already been around since 1891 when he started out for $32 a week. I read that he could do a new one in six hours and touch up several in a day, starting always with the “e” in chew. He always completed the HEW first because those were his initials.
The 1965 Highway Beautification Act prohibited billboard advertising within 640 feet of an interstate highway, basically ending the Mail Pouch barn program along the nation’s major highways. Luckily, they are designated National Historic Landmarks so these great barns should be around for a while.
As for Warrick, he was able to continue painting barns along lesser roads for Swisher International Group, the company that owned Mail Pouch. He was the last of the Mail Pouch painters and the program was suspended when he retired.
After retiring, Mr. Warrick painted Mail Pouch bird feeders and mail boxes from his Belmont, Ohio workshop. He died in 2000 at the age of 76.
The image above is from a farm along a country road at New Salem, Ohio. I made it in 2020 while out on a nice socially distanced drive. After all these years of admiring these landmark barns, I had no idea that the artist was from my very own area!
Isn’t it wonderful that we can still learn something new every day?
This cool sign is visible from the highway as you approach Dayton from the east. It always catches my eye so I exited for a closer look last Saturday.
This little number can be found in Zanesville, Ohio. It’s a slice of Americana, a fun remnant of advertising past and the sort of thing I live for on my journeys. It’s sometimes shocking how little it takes to make me happy.
Any time life takes me to Washington Courthouse, Ohio I sneak into downtown for a peak at this old advertising piece. It faces an alley across the street from the county courthouse and promotes Enslen’s Super Market.