MAIL POUCH BARNS

 Here is this week’s episode of Stay at Home Travel. Today, when we travel, we are bombarded with billboards advertising everything from Hotels and restaurants to Antique Shops and Roadside Attractions. There are so many of these that most of the time we drive right by without paying them any attention. But there was a time when advertising was not only unique but creative.

It was back in 2005 when I stopped at a small roadside restaurant on the National Road near Wheeling, West Virginia that I discovered a time when roadside advertising added character to the American Landscape. While having lunch, I noticed that the walls of the restaurant was dotted with photos of Mail Pouch Barns. After finishing my lunch, I was walking around the restaurant admiring the photos.

The owner approached me and for the next few minutes we chatted about how much I enjoy finding one of these roadside treasures when I am traveling. As we talked, he told me the man who painted most of these barns was named Harley Warrick. He went on to say that when Mr. Warrick was in the area, he would often frequent the restaurant and over the years they became friends. Because of his friendship with Mr. Warrick, the restaurant Owner, began stopping and taking pictures of the barn whenever he would come across one.

Over the years he has photographed more than 100 different barns or Roadside Treasures as he calls them. All of the more than 100 photos that hung in his restaurant are of different barns. After my visit I did a little research and found that Harley Warrick grew up on a dairy farm in Ohio. After a hitch in the Army he returned to Ohio where he was offered a job as – You guessed it – A barn Painter. It would be the only job he would ever have. He traveled from town to town, sleeping in his pickup truck, painting two barns a day.

For more than 50-year Harley traveled throughout rural America, painting and repainting more than 21,000 barns. But 1965, something called the Highway Beautification Act signaled the beginning of the end for the Mail Pouch Barns. Eventually, the Mail Pouch Barns were designated a National Historic Landmark and Harley was able continue painting the existing barns. Harley Warrick retired in 1991 and died 9-years later in 2000. He was the last of the Mail Pouch Barn Painters.

So now when I’m traveling around Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania and I see one of these wonderful barns, I make a point to stop and take a picture. Many of the barns are falling and the paint is fading, but I snap a picture anyway because once they are gone, there will never be anymore. So, the next time you are traveling the back roads of America and see one of these old barns think back and remember just how much character they add to the American Landscape, because soon they will all be gone.