Submitted Photo Guests to the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame/Center of Western Heritage & Cultures in Medora can take a close look at a variety of barbed wire innovations essential to the successful settlement of the plains. Photo courtesy NDCHF.

In the late 1800s, before barbed wire, the high cost of effective fencing coupled with a lack of fencing resources, challenged farming and ranching practices. Few trees grew on the plains, and lumber was in short supply. So much so that many homesteaders were forced to build houses of sod. Landowners who wanted to construct wooden fences had to purchase expensive, hewn rails and have them shipped by train or wagon. Few settlers would have attempted to homestead on the plains without an efficient, affordable method of keeping crops protected and their livestock contained.

Wire fencing proved to be cheaper, easier, and quicker to use than other alternatives. But before the invention of the barb, wire fences were easily broken by the weight of cattle pressing against them.

In 1863, a man named Michael Kelly made a significant improvement to fencing by twisting two wires together to form a cable. Known as the “thorny fence,” with points affixed, Kelly’s design made fences stronger, and the painful barbs kept cattle at bay.

Over the next 10 years, patents were issued for various barbed wire designs. Among them was the invention of a DeKalb, Illinois, farmer named Joseph Glidden. At a county fair, having seen the fencing exhibit of a man named Henry Rose, Glidden was inspired. He fashioned a simple wire barb locked onto a double-strand making wire fencing more effective. In addition, Glidden invented the machinery to mass-produce the wire.

Joseph Glidden’s U.S. patent was issued on November 24, 1874. Known as “The Winner,” Glidden’s patent survived court challenges from other inventors, and remains the most recognized style of barbed wire, today.

Another inventor, hardware merchant Isaac Ellwood, had been unsuccessful in perfecting his version of barbed wire. When Joseph Glidden was awarded his patent, he and Ellwood formed a partnership to establish The Barb Fence Company.

Glidden’s wire proved to be well suited to mass production techniques. By 1880, more than 80 million pounds of inexpensive barbed wire was sold. It was easy to install, withstood high winds and inclement weather, and it was durable, making it essential to the settlement of the plains. It was a popular method of enclosing and defining one’s property, keeping livestock in and trespassers out.

The advent of barbed wire innovation 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 homesteaders were fencing the open range where cattle had once freely roamed, and that the old technique of driving cattle over miles of unfenced land to railheads was no longer viable.

Glidden eventually sold his interest to the Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company for $60,000. He died in 1906.

From the bizarre, to the imaginative to the downright intimidating, barbed wire has taken many forms over the years. Nearly two-thousand strands of varied designs are on exhibition in western heritage museums around the United States.

At the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora, a modest collection is on display in the museum’s Homestead & Ranching Gallery. In addition to learning more about wire fencing techniques of yesteryear, visitors can immerse themselves in the journeys, trials and successes of North Dakota’s earliest residents.