Barn advertisement

A Mail Pouch Barn in southern Ohio
A Rock City barn in Sevier County, Tennessee
An Ohio Bicentennial barn in Ashtabula County

A barn advertisement is an outdoor advertisement painted onto the exterior of a roadside barn. Advertisers take advantage of the barns' prominence in rural landscapes, paying their owners for the right to paint and maintain logos and slogans on them.[1] Painters of barn advertisements and other murals are known as "wall dogs".[2] Once a common form of billboard advertising in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States during the early– to mid–20th century, barn advertisements have faded into obscurity, as many of these rural ghost signs fall into disrepair, along with the structures that bear them.[3]

  1. ^ Brown, Carole Gilbert (2008-07-24). "Demolition uncovers Mail Pouch ad". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Block Communications. Archived from the original on 2012-01-21.
  2. ^ "Bicentennial Barns" (PDF). Madison County, New York, Planning Department. 2006. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 1, 2015. Retrieved January 1, 2015.
  3. ^ Simmonds 2004, p. 113.