His work was stunningly impressive, if not overly imaginative.

I presume he never will be mistaken for a Picasso, Rembrandt, or Michelangelo.

Many of their pieces hang in some of the most renowned museums of the world, while his has been included at the Smithsonian from time to time.

All those men were not just painters — although paint is the medium they use — but, rather, they earned the title of artists. Each artist had a distinctive style, a special look, or a signature brush stroke.

And, while visitors to museums might debate, “Oh, that looks like a Monet,” or a van Gogh, or an O’Keeffe, no one ever will mistake the paintings of Ohio resident Harley Warrick, the folk art legend extraordinaire who painted the sides of barns across the U.S. with “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco. Treat Yourself to the Best.”

“If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all” pretty much sums up the Warrick experience of the barns he has painted. About as creative as you’re ever going to get with a Warrick painting is whether the barn has a black background or a red one.

I hadn’t given Harley much of a thought in recent years, and why should I? He’s been dead since 2000. But a Fox News feature story on him at the end of March brought back a flood of memories for me.

Warrick lived in Belmont, Ohio, a sleepy little rural “bump in the road” in the coal fields of East Ohio. Belmont, according to the 2020 census, had a population of 414 and was all of 0.27 square miles in size.

But Belmont was home to Warrick, the last Mail Pouch painter left in the U.S.

As a reporter/editor in the 1980s working for the Wheeling Intelligencer just across the Ohio River in West Virginia, it was my responsibility to have my staff or myself reporting stories out of places like Belmont. And that was how Warrick first came onto my radar.

Over the 10-year period I managed my reporters in East Ohio, Warrick and they got to know each other rather well, as he often was the focal point of a story someone or another was doing on his artwork. We did newspaper stories on Warrick, feature stories for magazines and special publications, and even provided initial research to broadcast stations who were traveling to the region for a story of their own.

Warrick not only was interesting, he was a legend. His work was everywhere. In one interview, he estimated that, over the span of his 55-year career, he probably had painted about 20,000 barns.

Even though the barn painting campaign by the Bloch Brothers Tobacco Co. ended in 1992, I would bet most people reading this today have seen a “Chew Mail Pouch” advertisement on the side of a barn.

Let’s face it, the advertising concept was ingenious.

The Wheeling-based tobacco company would pay the barn’s owner a nominal fee for the rights to paint the side of a barn facing a roadway. In some instances, if a barn was sited the right way, Warrick might be asked to paint two sides of that barn.

The tobacco company developed an iconic brand, or message, for its tobacco. The barn owner got paid, and received a fresh coat of paint on at least part of the barn. And Warrick and the other tobacco farmers got to travel the United States and see the country.

Michigan’s Frank Kelley, the longest serving state attorney general in the U.S., used to refer to advertising signs along interstate highways as “visual pollution on sticks.”

He would have been in favor of the barn advertising, however, since the messages were part of the existing landscape, and the barns, for the most part, sat back away from the highways.

Even in winter, when the weather brought a halt to traditional barn painting, Warrick would head inside, where he painted the famous Mail Pouch slogan on bird houses, mailboxes, and bird feeders. His work could be seen at many of the arts and crafts fairs which would be held in the tri-state area.

It’s funny, I guess, how images have a way of opening floodgates in your mind of times long past.

While I never was a proponent of tobacco use, the Mail Pouch advertising certainly was a slice of Americana that I appreciated, thanks to Warrick.

Today, if Warrick was alive and still painted barns, he would probably have to include a warning message from the surgeon general.

Back then, however, chewing tobacco was just a part of life.

It definitely was a different time and a different lifestyle.

I hadn’t thought of those East Ohio coal fields or Warrick in a long, long, time. But last month’s unexpected story reminded me of a folk art legend who, in his day, had the attention of an entire country.

And my trip back to Memory Lane was a sweet one, indeed.

Bill Speer retired in 2021 as the publisher and editor of The News. He can be reached at bspeer@thealpenanews.com.