Faded history in 20,000 coats of paint

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Faded history in 20,000 coats of paint
This Mail Pouch Barn off of M-99 is one of 84 in Michigan and four in Hillsdale County. Nic Rowan | Collegian

Anyone driving up M-99 from Jonesville has likely seen the faded Mail Pouch Tobacco advertisement painted on the side of a dilapidated barn. The sign reads “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco. Treat yourself to the best.”

Such barns sit on roadsides all over the East Coast, South, and upper Midwest. There are 84 in Michigan and four in Hillsdale County alone.

But even though the signs have become iconic of a bygone era — especially after tobacco usage has become less popular in many parts of the United States — few people know that most of these barns, including the ones in the Hillsdale area, were painted by one man: Harley Warrick.

Warrick did not live anywhere near Hillsdale, or even  in Michigan. He grew up in Ohio near Wheeling, West Virginia, and would drive around the country to paint and repaint Mail Pouch advertisements of barns in 13 states from Michigan to Missouri to New York.

According to the Associated Press, Warrick would paint without any stencils, first painting the “E” in “CHEW” and proportioning the rest of the barn on that letter. An assistant would fill in the blank space behind the letters with black lead-based paint. In this way, Warrick painted about about 4,000 barns that needed a fresh coated of paint every four years. By the time of his retirement in 1993, Warrick estimated he had applied about 20,000 coats of paint to barns in his 55 years of work.

“The first 1,000 were a little rough, and after that you got the hang of it,” he said in a 1997 interview with the AP.

The prevalence of Mail Pouch barns on roadsides is more than just an elaborate advertisement scheme, like the mile-marker countdown signs for the tourist-trap South of the Border off I-95 in South Carolina. They’re actually historical landmarks.

When the Federal Highway Beautification Act prohibited outdoor advertising within 660 feet of a federally funded highway in 1969, Mail Pouch stopped commissioning new signs. But because of the history associated with the existing signs and Warrick’s dedication to his craft, an exception was made for already-existing signs. Warrick continued to repaint signs — sometimes two a day — until his retirement. He died in 2000.

Warrick’s daughter Lena Williams told the AP he was dedicated to barn painting throughout his entire life, regardless of whether he was being paid.

“He would always say if you could find a job that you would do without being paid, that’s what you should do.  I don’t think he really thought about it as work.  It was just what he did,” she said.

The three Mail Pouch barns still standing in Hillsdale County are on M-99, South Hillsdale Street, and the corner of South Hillsdale Street and Lilac Road. The fourth was located on Route 12 in Jonesville, but collapsed in on itself in 2006.