It appears that a bit of vanishing Americana is making a comeback along roadsides across the nation.

Millions of people have seen signs reading "See Rock City" on the sides and roofs of barns alongside highways all across America since 1932.

The hand-painted signs tout the Chattanooga-area tourist attraction atop Lookout Mountain.

Nearly 1,000 such signs decorated barns across America at the height of the painting craze in the 1960s. Several of the surviving barns have been designated as historical landmarks and are protected from being torn down.

But the passage of the federal Highway Beautification Act in 1965 curtailed such roadside signs along federal roads, so the Rock City barn messages began to fade away.

Eventually, the number of such signed barns dwindled to 75 in 1998, but that number is starting to go up again. Rock City spokesman Jim Gilliland says there are now 78 such signed barns, another one will be painted soon (on the Georgia road leading to the Chicamauga National Battlefield) and requests for 12 more signed barns is being considered.

"Most of the signed barn requests are from people living in the Southeast and Midwest," he said. "We have to check them all out to make sure we are not in violation of any federal or state regulations when we send a painting crew in there," he said.

And, the man who got the barn-painting promotion going in 1932 is still living on his farm in Rising Fawn, Ga., having hung up his paint brush a few years ago.

Clark Byers painted the majority of the Rock City barns, traveling hundreds of thousands of miles from Florida to Canada and Texas to Canada.

"I know I painted about 900 barns in more than 30 years on the road," said Byers, who eventually turned the job over to his son, Fred.

Byers was a 22-year-old self-taught ad agency artist in 1932 when Garnet Carter bought the 10-acre Rock City Gardens tourist attraction. He called Byers to his office to discuss an idea he had to publicize his business.

Carter (also generally regarded as the inventor of miniature golf, a Rock City feature), told Byers he wanted to paint an ad slogan on barns along many of America's busiest highways (before the era of interstate highways).

Byers, now 88, said he asked Carter what kind of worthwhile message one could paint in large letters on the side or roof of a barn.

"Carter just pushed a piece of paper across his desk with the words SEE ROCK CITY on it." Thus, was a barnyard Rembrandt legend was born.

Byers said he sometimes added extra wording to the signs, calling Rock City "the 8th wonder of the world" or pointing out that one could "see 7 states" from the site.

"When I first started, Mr. Carter told me what barns to paint from the ones he'd made notes on while driving up and down U. S. 42 in Georgia and Tennessee,'' said Byers.

Byers said he got farmers to agree to having their barns painted by giving them free passes to the tourist attraction, sometimes throwing in logo-laced thermometers or bathmats. "Sometimes I just gave them $3 or so in cash -- after they caught on to the idea they could get paid," he said.

Byers said that in the beginning he mixed his own paint, using blacklamp and linseed oil (as little as 30 cents a gallon in those days). "There was no such thing as paint-rollers. We used a four-inch brush, never had to measure letters and always worked freehand. Once the paint got on there, there was no getting it off."

He said the first signs were painted red and black. "But red paint was so expensive we switched to black and white after a short while."

Byers said he and a couple of his helpers got so proficient at the job they could do as many as three barns a day.

"Before I knew it, we had painted barns in 19 states. Sometimes we had to turn our truck lights on to see how to finish a job."

He ended his barn-painting career in 1968 when the barn he was working was struck by lightning, putting him into a hospital for nearly a year.

"Flat-sided metal barns were the easiest to paint; shingle-roof barns were the hardest. I once even painted the sign backwards to pique curiosity."

Byers says he now confines his painting to an easel, doing still-life around his farm. He says his own barn does not have a Rock City sign on it, but he does have one of the miniature red-and-black See Rock City birdhouses in his front yard.

On the internet: www.seerockcity.com

This story was published on 15 May 2002.