Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn is a photograph by Phyllis Taylor which was uploaded on May 21st, 2015.
Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn
A Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn, or simply Mail Pouch Barn, is a barn with one or more sides painted from 1890 to 1992 with a barn advertisement for the... more
Title
Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn
Artist
Phyllis Taylor
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
A Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn, or simply Mail Pouch Barn, is a barn with one or more sides painted from 1890 to 1992 with a barn advertisement for the West Virginia Mail Pouch chewing tobacco company (Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company), based in Wheeling, West Virginia. At the height of the program in the early 1960s, there were about 20,000 Mail Pouch barns spread across 22 states.
These barns can be found in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and California (Ontario, on Jurupa and Turner) although an increasing number have fallen into dilapidation or have been demolished. The barns, usually hand-painted in black or red with yellow or white capital lettering, read as follows: "Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco Treat Yourself to the Best." Sometimes they are surrounded on the left and right by a thin vertical blue border.
Initially, barn owners were paid between $1 and $2 a year for the advertisement, equivalent in 1913 dollars to about $20�$40 today. But more importantly, they received a much desired fresh coat of paint to preserve the integrity of the wood. Mail Pouch painted their message on one or two sides of the barn (depending on viewability from the roadway) and painted the other sides of the barn any color the owner wished. Many of the barns were repainted every few years to maintain the sharp colors of the lettering.
Uploaded
May 21st, 2015
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