While barbed wire today is a helpful tool for military and defense purposes, it first was a feature of the American West landscape. Nine select patents from the U.S. Patent Office were used to create the wire fencing that is known today, starting with Michael Kelly in and finalizing with Joseph Glidden in . With lots of space to manage in those times, farmers needed a way to claim their lands and ensure their cattle stayed in one place, leading to a new use of barbed wire fences instead of using scarce lumber.
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While barbed wire may have negative connotations, these are not without some reasons. After all, when ranchers used barbed wire, they were closing off valuable resources to Indigenous Americans in the region. Barbed wire received the nickname of &#;Devil&#;s rope.&#; Barbed wire signified the end of an era for the free-roaming cowboy and changed the landscape of the American West. But barbed wire was not only used for ranchers; it also grew popular in war. The first mention of using barbed wire in warfare was in when British military manuals first suggested it as a defense method, and later, Teddy Roosevelt&#;s Rough Riders protected their camps with barbed wire. As barbed wire was more widely used in warfare, it became a military weapon during World War I. Even today, barbed wire is still an essential aspect of warfare to secure military installations.
While ranchers and the military use barbed wire, it can also deter theft when used in railway tracks and multinational corporations. Chain link fences with barbed wire are standard in manufacturing plants and other facilities that need to safeguard their materials. Barbed wire is a cost-effective and practical solution offering much-needed security.
While barbed wire is still being used today, its history is deeply embedded in the United States as an invention with pros and cons, but it is still widely regarded as what helped transform the American West. As the years go by, new improvements are being made, such as creating different classes offered in galvanized steel or coated in zinc and aluminum. While the United States invented barbed wire, modern improvements occurred in Australia and New Zealand.
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On October 27, , a DeKalb, Illinois, farmer named Joseph Glidden submits an application to the U.S. Patent Office for his clever new design for a fencing wire with sharp barbs, an invention that will forever change the face of the American West.
Glidden&#;s was by no means the first barbed wire; he only came up with his design after seeing an exhibit of Henry Rose&#;s single-stranded barbed wire at the De Kalb county fair. But Glidden&#;s design significantly improved on Rose&#;s by using two strands of wire twisted together to hold the barbed spur wires firmly in place. Glidden&#;s wire also soon proved to be well suited to mass production techniques, and by more than 80 million pounds of inexpensive Glidden-style barbed wire was sold, making it the most popular wire in the nation. Prairie and plains farmers quickly discovered that Glidden&#;s wire was the cheapest, strongest, and most durable way to fence their property. As one fan wrote, &#;it takes no room, exhausts no soil, shades no vegetation, is proof against high winds, makes no snowdrifts, and is both durable and cheap.&#;
The effect of this simple invention on the life in the Great Plains was huge. Since the plains were largely treeless, a farmer who wanted to construct a fence had little choice but to buy expensive and bulky wooden rails shipped by train and wagon from distant forests. Without the alternative offered by cheap and portable barbed wire, few farmers would have attempted to homestead on the Great Plains, since they could not have afforded to protect their farms from grazing herds of cattle and sheep. Barbed wire also brought a speedy end to the era of the open-range cattle industry. Within the course of just a few years, many ranchers discovered that thousands of small homesteaders were fencing over the open range where their cattle had once freely roamed, and that the old technique of driving cattle over miles of unfenced land to railheads in Dodge City or Abilene was no longer possible.