Rurality

‘RURALITY BLOG HOP’ 

It’s time for you to enter your photos in ‘Rurality Blog Hop open to everyone. Post something about rural life and and share it with us! The linky will open every Wednesday morning around 09:00 Pacific Time and will close the following Thursday at midnight

This hop is hosted by Madge from The View From Right Here.

Rurality: /roo-ral-i-tee/ (noun): a rural characteristic, matter, or scene, of or relating to the country, country people or life, or agriculture.

As we drove home last week through Kentucky I was on the lookout for an old-fashioned advertisement on a barn. I finally found this one but it was in Ohio!!

 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.

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.