This barn adorned with a painting of an elephant sits along Route 40 between Scenery Hill and Washington and I pass it every day on my way to work. I have never stopped to take a photo of it, never asked anyone about it, or ever heard anyone discuss it. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t wondered about it as I whizzed past. Why an elephant? Usually, the barns around here have a “Mail Pouch” ad emblazoned on the side, but not an elephant. Recently, I was looking in a book Westward of ye Laurall Hill when I stumbled upon a picture of the barn. The author Helen Vogt drew the photo in the book, w hich focuses on Washington, Greene, and Fayette counties during the period of 1750-1850. There it was on page 327, in a chapter titled “Horse Racing - Red Fox Chasers - Picture Barns - Horses.” She maintains it was painted for the Triangle Oil Company, ca. 1940. “Another weathered grey barn at the side of the National Road west of Scenery Hill has the rather startling painting of an elephant
Family Stories from Southwestern Pennsylvania & Ohio