Along the Lincoln Highway, July 2018: Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco

Continued from the last post.

There were Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco barns in twenty-two states (mostly in the Midwest).  Farmers who had the ads placed on their barns were modestly compensated by the Wheeling, West Virginia, based tobacco company.

They employed painters.  One of whom was Harley Warrick of Ohio who estimates he painted 20,000 barns over his long career.  Hus retirement marked the end of the Mail Pouch barn-painting era.

One of the remaining Mail Pouch signs is in Marshall County, Indiana.  Her family has owned the farm, six miles east of Plymouth, since 1890.    She readily acknowledged that the barn was in bad shape and she was debating options of what to do with it.

On Tuesday, July 17, she found a 7 by 21-foot section of the barn gone.

Sign Stealers On the Loose.  --RoadDog