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 aikefu
  
Location: SW Ohio
Gender: Male
Yes.
 |  |  | Mail Pouch Barn - Enon, OH
< on 2/11/2008 7:22 AM >
|  | | | Every day on my way into Dayton, I pass a barn out on the side of the road with some old lettering painted on the side. I've always been curious about it, so I decided to do a little exploring. After figuring out what the lettering said, I researched it and apparently there are many of these kind of barns throughout the Midwest/Rust Belt. They're called "Mail Pouch Barns" (named after "Mail Pouch Tobacco"). Here's what Wikipedia had to say:
A Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn, or simply Mail Pouch Barn, is a barn with one or more sides painted from 1890 to 1992, in advertisement for the West Virginia Mail Pouch chewing tobacco company (Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company), based in Wheeling, West Virginia. These barns can be found in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and California 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.
Some of the barns are now listed as National Historic Landmarks by the Secretary of the Interior.
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.
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I hadn't ever seen anything going in or out of the place, and it looked pretty run down, so I assume it's abandoned. But because there's houses not far from the place, I didn't want to be too obvious, so I went right before sunrise to avoid nosy passersby, as well as to be able to get both dark and light shots.
I went around to the back of the barn while it was still dark, and found an open doorway. The entire back wall of the barn was literally dangling from the roof. There was a bitter cold wind that would make the entire back wall of the structure sway outward, which made it very unnerving to be inside. This place is probably going to collapse in a strong wind one of these days.
A work table with a butt-load of lumber on the floor next to it.
A part of the roof covering had been blown off.
Inside the barn was a large main area, and on either side was a small corridor area. This is one of the doorways to the corridor on the right.
The corridor on the left.
The doorway to the left corridor.
Some old bicycle wheels laying on a counter.
A cook-book.
A chair sitting alone in an open space.
It was pitch dark when I took this picture. I just aimed at a random spot, took the picture with the flash, and then when I looked at the picture on my illuminated camera screen, I about pissed my pants when I saw a skull there.
A shot of the sunrise from inside.
A shot through the little doorway in the back of the barn.
One of the wall boards had come off and there was a young tree growing right where it had been.
An owl-themed lamp.
A little pano of the painted side of the barn
Here's a thread I posted with some much more stylish, artistic photography of the place: http://www.uer.ca/...d=1&threadid=52733
[last edit 2/11/2008 7:26 AM by aikefu - edited 2 times]
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