“Barkcamp Barn: Mission Accomplished – Putting a New Face on an Old Friend“
by Bill Vint – Fall 2016 edition of the ‘Mail Pouch Barnstormers’ newsletter
It was a project 15 years in the making, and over the August 26-28 weekend, the Mail Pouch Barnstormers family – with plenty of help from Ohio’s Barkcamp State Park staff – completed the most ambitious project in our little club’s history.
We helped restore an iconic Mail Pouch Tobacco sign on an historic barn in eastern Ohio.
Without realizing what would happen in the future, the restoration of the Mail Pouch sign on the “Solomon Bentley barn” actually began in 2001 when a group of people interested in preserving the heritage of Mail Pouch Tobacco signs got together for a picnic in front of the old barn Solomon Bentley built more than 100 years ago to store his apple crops.
The old barn, now the property of Barkcamp State Park, became a Mail Pouch barn in the 1980s when Harley Warrick painted it for the first time. It no longer houses apples, but it’s still in use as a storage facility and sometimes classroom for park activities.
The group of Mail Pouch enthusiasts who gathered there in 2001 decided to formalize their common interests, and a year later, created the Mail Pouch Barnstormers. After a second gathering at Algonquin Mills, another well-known Mail Pouch barn site, the club began a tradition of holding an annual meeting in the old Belmont, Ohio, school gymnasium to swap stories, share food and raise some money to help preserve or restore aging Mail Pouch signs.
That’s what brought us back to Barkcamp 15 years later. It was an informal celebration of sorts, including a “painting party” where Barnstormers and Barkcamp personnel worked together to give the old barn a fresh coat of paint and restore its historic sign.
It turned into a bit of an adventure, but in the end, it was mission accomplished and today, the Solomon Bentley Barn has a fresh coat of paint (including a primer coat), and the famous Mail Pouch sign that hadn’t been touched since Harley Warrick last repainted it in 2000 – shortly before he left this world – was restored to its original glory.
Here are some of the highlights of how it all came about:
● After several years of discussion, the Barnstormers and Barkcamp State Park manager Jason Carpenter arrived at a decision to work together to re-paint the aging barn as a 15-year anniversary celebration party. We settled on the late August weekend in an effort to avoid the traditional last-Saturday-in-July Barnstormers meeting date to avoid the hot, humid weather that typically accompanies that weekend.
● Following an exchange of emails and phone calls, Carpenter made arrangements with his staff to “prep” the barn for new paint. The original idea was to manually scrap the old, flaking paint off, but in the end, the faster and more economical solution was using an industrial power washer to blast the old paint away.
● The power washing worked, but apparently unaware of the historic value of the sign, the young and eager workers also removed the old paint off the Mail Pouch end of the barn.
● The good news was, the faded outline of the Mail Pouch sign was still visible. The bad news was, the eager young staff then started spray-painting the primer coat to the entire barn, completely covering the TREAT YOURSELF TO THE BEST portion of the sign before Carpenter stopped the work.
● Seeking guidance on what to do next, we called fellow Barnstromer and experienced barn painter Drew Matta who made a special trip to Belmont to assess the situation. Drew’s recommendation was to finish applying primer, but to stay at least six inches away from any exposed part of the sign outline. Drew said he also had a friend could help with the “Treat Yourself…” issue.
● Barkcamp’s staff completed applying a fresh coat of red paint to three sides of the barn, and around the sign, so when the weekend arrived, we were ready to go.
● On Friday, Barnstormers’ president Roger Warrick (son of Harley) and charter president Lonnie Schnauffer arrived, and met with Carpenter and Brandon Krok, a Barkcamp employee who was assigned to oversee the project.
● Bright and early Saturday morning, Warrick, Schnauffer, Chris Maher and Krok got the final stages of the project underway. Barkcamp had rented a power lift to elevate two painters to the highest sections of the barn.
● Drew Matta also arrived early and unveiled the “pounce” his friend, graphic artist Kenny Laney of Sherrodsville, Ohio, had created from older photos of the barn. A “pounce” is a kind of stencil, with small holes outlining the “Treat Yourself…” lettering in precise details. Matta hung the pounce and used white paint to position the missing lettering exactly where it was supposed to be, and began outlining the letters for club members to fill in later that day.
● Steadily, other Barnstormers began to trickle into the park. After a brief business meeting, traditional picnic lunch and fund-raising auction on Saturday – which featured professional bowler Tom Carter of Columbus, Ohio, an accomplished auctioneer in his own right – most club members adjourned to the park for a group photo, and to take turns painting portions of the sign.
● Using modern technology, as the painting party progressed, several members took photos with their smartphones and posted photos on Facebook, giving Mail Pouch fans far-and-wide real-time updates as the old barn took on its new look.
● While most club members headed home Saturday afternoon, Warrick, Schnauffer, Maher and Bob Klein remained on-site. The project was completed on Sunday when Roger re-created his father’s signature and added a special footnote. It was too late for others who participated in painting the barn, but Roger also initiated a way to recognize those who helped by adding their “initials” to the vertical trim boards on the sign end of the barn.
● In the end, park visitors who visit the Solomon Bentley barn probably would have no idea anything has changed. But that’s a key part of restoration. It isn’t supposed to look different; it’s supposed to look like it has for all those years before. If that’s a measure of success, it was “mission accomplished” thanks to a bunch of Barnstormers who care.
For more on this barn, see MPB 35-07-07.
