Highway 1 barn sign was iconic ‘part of our California countryside.’ What happened to it?

One of the lost Americana landmarks of San Luis Obispo is the Mail Pouch Barn.

The story includes a long-time farming family, a recently controversial construction company owner and an advertising saga that spans the country.

The barn still sits on Mail Pouch Lane, on Highway 1 north of San Luis Obispo, but the long-time advertisement on the roof faded and was later replaced with a mundane tin roof.

The image at the base of Bishop Peak was so scenic that a Texas boot company used a photo in an advertisement. Milton Bradley made the barn the subject of a 500-piece puzzle . Life magazine also published an image and artists made plein air pilgrimages to the site.

The story of the barn begins in 1914 when Rafael Mora bought the Smith and Goldtree Ranch in 1914.

According to a July 23, 1998, obituary for his son, Lawrence Mora, there were eight children born to Josephine and Rafael Mora, who lived in the ranch house and had a dairy and cattle ranching business associated with the landmark barn.

Another Telegram-Tribune story says the barn dated to 1895.

At some point, the roof of the barn was painted black with bold capital block letters in yellow and white reading: Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco. Treat yourself to the best.”

The signs were the central pillar of a nationwide advertising campaign by Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company based in Wheeling, West Virginia.

During the high water mark in the 1960s, there were thousands of barns painted with the message across 39 states, according to West Virginia Public Radio .

Farmers at first would be paid with a subscription to Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s or Life magazine. Later, they would be paid with a nominal cash amount and a free coat of paint on a side of the barn.

One man, Harley Warrick, painted or retouched over 20,000 signs in a 55-year career.

He retired in 1991, and the rising tides of sentiment and laws against highway billboards and the ban on tobacco advertising were the final brush strokes on the canvas.

A few of the barns remain as historical relics, but the one in San Luis Obispo was restored as the tide was running hard against the historical display advertisement.

Many of those late 19th and early 20th century barns have fallen to the relentless ravages of time.

By 1982, the barn was in bad shape, but it was in the hands of someone who was well positioned to do something about it: Ray Bunnell, who has been in the news lately for thwarting plans to extend the Bob Jones Trail across a property he owns near San Luis Creek on the way to Avila Beach.

At the time he owned the barn and ranch, though it was later advertised for sale in the 1990s.

This article ran on Aug. 18, 1982, in the Telegram-Tribune:

Mail Pouch barn: It’s being restored

The aging barn with the Mail Pouch Tobacco sign at the foot of Bishop Peak near Highway 1 has been a favorite subject for artist and photographers for years.

But it might not have remained so for long if its owner, Ray Bunnell, hadn’t decided to repair it when he discovered “one end was about to fall down.”

He sent a crew from his Bunnell Construction Co. to repair the 87-year-old structure and “when we started to work on it, we discovered a considerable amount of problems.”

“What I’m doing is trying to restore it to its natural state,” Bunnell explained.

Eventually, he said, he plans to have the old Mail Pouch sign on the roof repainted.

The barn, built in 1895 by James Rasmussen, long housed a dairy operation. Bunnell said it is now used for hay storage and livestock on his cattle ranch.

But the building is probably best known as a scenic landmark — the subject of countless paintings, sketches and photographs.

“Everybody goes by it on the way up and down the coast,” said Pismo Beach artist Dave Martin, who has sketched it many times.

“It’s like one of the first things they see, and people are excited about it. Almost everybody relates to it somehow. They say, ‘This is part of our California countryside.’”

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