Barbed Wire
Collections of the many varieties of barbed wire are in museums or restaurants featuring ‘country fare cooking’ . This collection is the largest I have ever seen. So many samples of the various types–all designed to keep cattle in designated places.
Barbed wire is attributed to the taming of the American West–it was relatively low cost, low labor intensive, and quick. Previous fencing had consisted of planting Osage orange–a prickly tree that took time to grow. Eventually the fenceposts were of Osage Orange and the barbed wire of choice strung along.
The first barbed wire in the U.S. was attributed to Lucien Smith of Kent Ohio in 1867 with modifications later by Glidden in 1874. And there is the familiar concertina wire and the barbed wire around prisons and concentration camps and trenches used in war fare–but lets not think about those uses.
For now–just look at the huge variety of barb wire—all to contain cattle within their allotted grazing areas.
And the other side of this wall had an equal number of plaques all displaying more types of barbed wire. All at the Whitehead Memorial Museum in Del Rio Texas
Sylvia Weir Art 