Charles Pabst doesn't care if his neighbors think he's crazy.

The Forward man is happy with his new Mail Pouch barn advertisement, painted larger-than-life on the side of his old barn.

The 40-foot by 70-foot black, yellow and white sign is hard to miss from nearby Leisie Road.

"People come down the road, they stop and look, some take pictures," he said. "We've gotten some feedback on it, but I think they all mostly think we're just crazy."

Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Charles Pabst's love of antiques led him to provide his barn in Forward for the re-creation of an American classic, the Mail Pouch Tobacco sign. The same hand-painted sign could be seen on thousands of barns in the mid-20th century. The last full-time Mail Pouch barn painter retired in 2000. Mr. Pabst's barn was painted by Jeff Checkan, of Forward, and Lonnie Schnauffer, of Richland, president of the Mail Pouch Barnstormers, a group dedicated to preserving the history of the Mail Pouch barns. Click photo for larger image.

Mr. Pabst, an avid collector of antiques, doesn't think the advertisement is odd. In fact, it's something he's wanted to do for a long time.

He said he decided to have one of the advertisements painted on his barn after joining the Barnstormers, an association that preserves and protects old barns.

"A lot of these old barns, they were being burned down, some were left to fall apart and others were left to go to hell," he said.

The monthly newsletter sent out by the association showed some old barns with the advertisements painted on them. Mr. Pabst said he thought the ads were neat and saw them as one more way to help preserve his barn and make it unique.

He set out to find a way to get the advertisement painted on the barn.

The original advertisements were painted on one or more sides of barns from 1890 to 1992. The company painted the signs for free and would pay farmers between $1 and $2 a year to have them displayed. The barns could be found in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.

While researching how to get the advertisement on his barn, Mr. Pabst came across a newspaper story about the Mail Pouch Barnstormers, a group of about 150 people whose goal is to preserve the old Mail Pouch barn advertisements. He joined the group and began expressing his interest in having one of the advertisements on his barn.

Lonnie Schnauffer, of Richland, is president of the group and offered to paint the advertisement on Mr. Pabst's barn free of charge.

"[The ads] are slowly disappearing, and people start taking more interest in things once they start to disappear because it reminds them of better days," Mr. Schnauffer said. "I always thought it would be neat to paint one."

According to Mr. Schnauffer, there are 125 original advertisements left on barns in Pennsylvania and 1,000 left nationwide.

It took three men nearly 35 hours to paint the advertisement, Mr. Pabst said. The men had to contend with rain and the condition of the barn they were painting.

"There were times it rained so hard we just had to quit," Mr. Pabst said. "That rain really kept us from getting it done faster."

Mr. Schnauffer said the barn siding had to be scraped and have several layers of primer applied before the advertisement could be painted.

"That barn was in pretty bad shape before we started," Mr. Schnauffer said. "There was a lot of work we had to do before we could even start painting."

Both Mr. Schnauffer and Mr. Pabst said they were pleased with the result.

"I'm very happy with it," Mr. Pabst said. "I think it looks great."

Mr. Schnauffer said he was so happy with it that he wouldn't mind doing it again for someone. He said he planned to take a photo of his work on Mr. Pabst's barn and mail it to the tobacco company. It is still in operation and is based in West Virginia, he said.

For more information on Mr. Schnauffer's group and the advertisements, visit www.mail-pouch.org.