Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn, Red Oak II, Missouri Poster

"Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn, Red Oak II, Missouri" by Catherine Sherman A Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn stands in Red Oak II, Missouri, a living history museum which re-creates a Midwestern small town with vintage buildings moved to the town. A Mail Pouch Tobacco barn is a barn with one or more sides painted with a barn advertisement for the West Virginia Mail Pouch chewing tobacco company (Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company). The program ran from 1891 to 1992, and at its height in the early 1960s, about 20,000 Mail Pouch barns were spread across 22 states. The barns, usually hand-painted in black or red with yellow or white capital lettering, read as: "Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco--Treat Yourself to the Best." Barn owners were paid a small amount each year for the advertisements, and the barns were regularly repainted to preserve the wood and maintain the ad.