Tedrick Barn: Made Famous by “Zim”

“Tedrick Barn: Made Famous by ‘Zim’“
by Bill Vint – Summer 2015 edition of the ‘Mail Pouch Barnstormers’ newsletter

We’re calling the Mail Pouch Barnstormers’ featured barn for 2015 “The Tedrick Barn.” It could be the Moore-head barn, the Remer Barn, the Davis barn, or one of the numerous other owners of the property outside of Cambridge, Ohio, dating back to 1908, as documented by Guernsey County Recorder Colleen Wheatley. But evidence points to Joe Tedrick as the owner when it first became a member of the Mail Pouch family.

The Tedrick Barn is one of several in Guernsey County, and one of the most photographed of all Mail Pouch barns. While it officially resides on Bottle Lane, it’s easily visible from U.S. Route 22 northwest of Cambridge.

Like virtually all Mail Pouch barns, the barn coded MPB 35-30- 10 in our mailpouchbarnstormers.org website archive has a unique story. How it actually became a Mail Pouch barn isn’t precisely known, but from what long-time Barnstormers have been able to track down, it appears its history dates back to 1976, so that’s where we’ll start.

The barn was purchased by Joe Tedrick in December 1975 from Lillie (Remer) Moorehead at a sheriff’s sale. The property had fallen into arrears on county tax roles in the wake of the death of its previous owner, school teacher Ed Remer. (Footnote: official records alternatively list “Remer” and “Reimer” as the previous owner; Remer is the spelling used most often.)

Early in 1976, noted Mail Pouch barn painter Maurice Zimmerman was contacted by Bowling Green University, which had an interest in documenting an historic re-creation of the painting of a Mail Pouch sign as part of the nation’s bicentennial celebration. As Zimmerman’s son Norman recounts, his father agreed to participate in the project. He still had all of his painting equipment – his portable stage where he stood to do the painting; the hooks, pulleys, rope and ladders used to scale the wall; brushes, paint, etc. (It ultimately cost “Zim” $406 out of his own pocket to do the project).

M.A. Zimmerman asked his grandson, Tom (an Ohio State University student) to pose as his helper, and he borrowed a 1929 Model T truck from local businessman Ray Fleming to help replicate a 1920s-era project. With a film crew from WBGU television in tow, the documentary unfolds with Maurice and Tom Zimmerman driving up a gravel lane, with the blank-canvas barn to the right.

Joe Tedrick comes out of his house and “Zim” negotiates the deal, typical of the era, to paint the barn with a Mail Pouch sign, offering Tedrick a modest fee in payment for the rights to showcase the advertising message.

It was the 30-minute documentary, along with a feature story in “The Spirit of Cambridge” magazine, and numerous other articles that made the Tedrick barn one of the most recognizable of all Mail Pouch barns.

The question about when it became a Mail Pouch barn is open for debate, but based upon the WBGU documentary which shows Joe Tedrick’s barn with a blank grey end – and the absence of any photographic evidence prior to 1976, it’s likely that was when the barn first became a Mail Pouch building.

Another unusual characteristic of the barn is its horizontal siding. Most barns feature vertical siding.

The Tedrick barn passed along to Joe’s widow Dorothy in 1991, and later to their son, Edward, in 1997. Ed Tedrick still owns the property, which is showing the ravages of its years. Ed Tedrick is doing what he can to try to save the barn, but costs of renovation and repair may be too much. In March of 2015, a section of the stone foundation caved in after heavy rain, further jeopardizing the structure’s stability.

How long the Tedrick barn, with its distinctive (although deteriorating horizontal siding), and its fading Mail Pouch sign (the original as painted by “Zim” nearly 40 years ago) will last is questionable, so if you get a chance, make the trek to see it.

For more photos of the barn over the years, visit our website, mailpouchbarnstormers.org, and look for MPB 35-30-10 under the “signs” link. For more about Maurice Zimmerman, check out story titled “The Barns Remain but the Artists are Forgotten!” under Zimmerman’s name under the history tab.

Maurice Zimmerman died in 1993, at the age of 87. His son Norman lives in Cambridge, daughter Maxine Dudley resides in Alliance, Ohio, and daughter Pauline Kollar lives in Louisville, Ky. Daughter Norma is deceased.

(Update: The Tedrick Barn collapsed and its remains removed from the property in 2018.)