Clark Byers spent three decades splashing the plea "See Rock City" on America's pitched-roof barns, but his life's work is slowly fading from the landscape.
The famous slogan for the Lookout Mountain attraction, hand-painted in white letters against a stark black background, could be found on more than 900 barns from Michigan to Florida and from Texas to West Virginia during the late 1950s. Now only about 80 of the barns remain."It was just terrible, that Lady Bird Johnson (Beautification) Act," Byers said from his home in Rising Fawn, Ga. "(The barns) weren't an eyesore. They were better than rusty roofs off in a field."
The 1965 act, which set standards for outdoor advertising, forced crews to paint over about 800 barns, said Bill Chapin, president of Rock City Gardens.
Barns not touched by the law fell to highway expansion or shopping malls, he said.
Those that have survived are found mainly on U.S. highways in the South. Many are designated as national landmarks, Chapin said.
Chapin's great-uncle and great-aunt, Garnet and Frieda Carter, opened the attraction in 1932.
The towering rock formations, estimated to be 200 million years old, 4,000 species of plants, caves and a view of seven states (on a clear day) interested Carter, yet few tourists knew of the attraction five years after it opened.
Byers, now 77, was working at Southern Advertising at the time as a sign painter when his boss, Fred Maxwell, asked him to meet Carter.
"They both liked to drink a little," Byers said. "So, they'd meet regularly at this lodge and drink. I guess it was there they came up with the idea of using barn roofs as billboards.
"They got to where they'd go riding and pick out these roofs that they thought looked good from the highway.
"Then they'd send me over to see if I could talk `em into letting us paint their barn. When I knocked on the doors, sometimes I hoped nobody was there, you know what I mean?"
Byers said after a while he started finding barns on his own, and Carter would just pick a highway for him to canvass. He was paid $40 a job.
It was Byers who negotiated the deals - offering farmers a free paint job in exchange for rooftop advertising space. Some wanted more.
"Mr. Carter gave me an armful of souvenirs to give out," Byers said. "After a while, people got educated and wanted us to pay them something, usually about five bucks. Never more than 10."
The barnyard Rembrandt never used stencils. The rooftop was painted black and then he sketched out the saying in chalk and hand painted it in white. All the work was done with brushes.
The work wasn't always easy.
Byers broke an arm, a leg and was electrocuted during his 34-year career.
"Once, when I was painting near Murfreesboro (Tenn.) on U.S. 41, a high-power line dropped down and a truck went by and blew it over against the metal board," Byers said. "It sounded like a shotgun. I thought I was dead."
Byers said his left side was paralyzed and the hair was singed off his head. "It laid me up for about a year, but I went back."
He started out with one assistant and ended up with three crews. His three sons also painted with him.
"We'd be out on the road for 10 days to two weeks and then home a week," Byers said. "We repaint our originals about every two years, so we'd work north in the summer and south in the winter."
Byers said he started out painting two or three barns a day, but he could do about six repaints a day.
If the roof was large enough, he'd expand the phase to "See 7 States from Rock City" or "35 miles to Rock City atop Lookout Mtn."