Monday, November 21, 2011

The Air Marker Barn




Barn Charm 14. Starting in the mid 1930's the government started painting rooftops to help pilots know where they were and where they were going. By 1941 some 13,000 of these air markers were out there. Some were airport or town names with directional arrows and some where, like this one in Path Valley, longitude and latitude coordinates. After Pearl Harbor they reconsidered this plan and started to remove those near the coasts. This one  can be seen on the south side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, near mile marker 189 (or so). As you can see from Google Earth the back side of the barn was repaired and the longitudinal coordinate is no longer visible. Also, according to Google Earth, the more precise reading on the  barn would be  40-06-50 North, 77-47-01 West. Just in case you happen to be flying by and your GPS is broken.


That's right it is Barn Charm time again. Hop on over to Tricia's Barn Charm site and check out all the barns that are there this week. Just click the barn below.


5 comments:

Carletta said...

The second shot is very picturesque. I like the old building to the left. I like the black and white treatment of the last photo.
I've seen many barns with all kinds of ads and quilt squares but never one with directions. Thanks for sharing something new to look for. :)

Bev said...

Very interesting building!

Rose said...

I liked all of these...and that is an interesting bit of history that I had never heard.

Anonymous said...

You always have such informative posts & I thank you for that... I hadn't known any of this before.

It's a great barn!

Thanks for joining, Haney!

Carole said...

How very interesting. Great barn.

There's a barn at the coast that has a rooftop ad. That was one I'd never seen before. lol
Barn Charm 60