Mail Pouch ---> History ---> An Original Barn Painter ---> Narrative pg 5

5	The Barns Remain	"Zim"	Page 1	Page 2	Page 3
	But the Artist Are Forgotten!	Page 4	Page 5	Page 6	Appendix
He often met interesting people. In Indiana, PA., he visited Jimmy Stewart's father who was in the hardware business. Also in that state they did a barn for the uncle of Dennis Day, the singer. And near Barnesville, Ohio, they also did a job on the birthplace of William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy). Zim recalls that his first barn sign was done near Norwalk, Oh, on Route 20 in 1925. His largest Mail Pouch sign was done on the side of a building on First Street in Wheeling, W.Va. It was 110 feet high and 43 feet wide. He also painted the sign on the factory in Wheeling in 1929, which can still be seen today as you drive by. The letters in the words Mail Pouch were three to four feet high and some as large as six to eight feet high. He also painted on a house in Lancaster and a silo near Napoleon, Ohio. The last sign he painted was at the request of his son, Norman, who also lives in Cambridge, "Dad, if I ever build a barn, I want you to paint a Mail Pouch sign on it." The barn was built in 1975 and the sign has been painted on its side. The Mail Pouch Tobacco Co. today (1984) has only one painter carrying out the 93 year old tradition. He is a Belmont County painter named Harley Warrick. Warrick broke in with a Mr. Duffy of Barnesville before becoming a helper to Zim. "In 1976 the Bicentennial did a lot to stir up interest in the past, and there seemed to be a whole cult of people interested in Mail Pouch signs. My neighbor, the retired State Senator, Bob Secrest, is a history buff and chewer of Mail Pouch. If he had his way old barns bearing those tobacco signs would be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, so they couldn't be torn down as easily.