The Elephant Barn in Scenery Hill, PA (The Real Story!)

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, which 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 in harness, done by an unknown artist for the Triangle Oil Company of Washington about thirty years ago,” she wrote in her book that was published the year of our nation’s bicentennial celebration.

However, Laura Ballein of Scenery Hill has a different version and it's what locals believe to be the real story as to how an elephant ended up on a barn that is now owned by Bill and Karen Sprowls.

"There was a circus that came through and they camped up there and while they were there, they painted the elephant on the side of the barn," she said, noting that this is the story her mother Bernice Morris told her.

Laura, who is 69 years old and still lives on Route 40, said her parents Harry and Bernice Morris would know because they owned an Esso gas station about a mile west of the elephant barn. They owned this station, along with a little store and a restaurant, until 1971. The elephant was there before Laura was born.

She said her dad kept the gas station open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. during the winter months, but during the summer there was so much traffic on Route 40, that he paid someone to man the station until midnight.

"(Interstate) 70 hadn't gone through yet, so (Route) 40 got a lot of traffic," she said. "Caravans of gypsies would come and be lined up to gas at the pumps in their Airstream trailers."

Vogt's book mentions another picture barn - the “Fox Hunt Barn” mural painted in 1916 on a hay barn owned by Lee Armstrong in Jefferson, Greene County, Pa.

I’m not sure if this barn is still standing, but here is a drawing of the mural she included in the book, which is “illustrated with facsimiles and author’s drawings” instead of photographs. 

If you know anything about the elephant barn or the fox hunt barn, please share so I can update this post. 

by Randi Ross Marodi

randileeross@gmail.com