Barbed Wire FENCES

The sharp discovery of this simple inanimate object won the West.

By Clell G. Ballard

RANCHING in the cowboy era of the late 1800s and early 1900s has become a fixture in American minds. There are literally thousands of books written about that phenomenon. It doesn’t seem to make much difference if the book is fiction or nonfiction, somewhere in its pages will be a statement like, “the (fill in the blank) won the West.” You can insert the name of just about any kind of handgun or rifle into that statement. Historic events, such as the Homestead Act of 1862 and railroad expansion also complete the sentence, and make fairly accurate statements. However, it wasn’t until some method of keeping livestock located in one general area was developed that lasting settlement became a reality. The lowly barbed wire fence was the one thing that…

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Capper's Farmer (Digital) - 1 Issue, Spring 2020

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