I think we’ve lost some fun in this modern age before billboards. Really quite a few things but one was the colorful barn and store advertising in the 1950s that painters used to put on buildings for certain products. They were eye-catching and, the money they paid the owners was more than they had.
Painters of such were known as “Wall Dogs.” Don’t ask me why. I get the wall part but dogs?
Whoever came up with the idea of using barns to tout products was pretty smart. The barns were just sitting there all plain and nondescriptive and ended up really different. Of course, it depended on the product too. One of the largest advertising to grace barns was Mail Pouch Tobacco. Painters put that on 20,000 barns in sixteen states. Quite a sales tactic. Plus, they gave the farmer free Mail Pouch tobacco for a year.
Lucky Strike cigarettes featured a smiling doctor on the ad. You sure wouldn’t see that anymore.
There were a lot more barn advertisements up north than down here in the south and I don’t know why that was. Maybe there were more painters up there. I read that one painter could do three barns in a day. Man, that’s fast! They didn’t do only barns either. They put their advertising on the sides of businesses as well.
The Highway Beautification Act brought this practice to a halt and they all disappeared. But the art is kinda catching on again a little bit, not products but murals. I noticed in several Texas towns, someone painted beautiful scenes on the sides of buildings in the downtown areas. They were so eye-catching.
As a girl, I always loved to read billboards as my family traveled across the country. My paternal grandparents lived in Southern California and each year we would make the trip to see them. Our route took us across the Mojave Desert. It took us hours to cross that scorching part of America and it was very boring. Then the Burma Shave company began to put billboards across there, spaced every mile or so, and they had the cutest sayings. Here are a few:
- Does your husband / Misbehave / Grunt and grumble / Rant and rave / Shoot the brute some / Burma-Shave
- A shave / That’s real / No cuts to heal / A soothing / Velvet after-feel / Burma-Shave
- Shaving brushes / You’ll soon see ’em / On the shelf / In some / Museum / Burma-Shave
They were quite entertaining. Not as good as a barn though. Do you remember seeing some of these barns or signs when you went down the road?