Pirates of the Caribbean is a theme park ride found in many Disney Parks. Part of the ride teaches riders the park’s history, pirates, and pirates’ most valuable weapons: barbed wire. The metallic wire is used to keep fences secure. It’s used today worldwide in many different countries. So, it’s not just a piece of history. It is a valuable tool that is versatile in its use.
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It’s origins date back to when inventor Joseph Glidden created it for a fencing competition in Illinois. Although many inventors were working on fences at the time, none had succeeded in creating a material that would be inexpensive and at the same time keep animals and people off the land. Joesph Glidden’s invention started out as a labor saving measure when he was hired to work for Jacob Haish on his farm and prevent animals from grazing outside the land.
Barbed wire is made up of a bunch of small metal wires that have been twisted together. These wires are then bent into pointed shapes with an eye-shaped piece to loop the wire around the posts that will be holding the wire up.
Barbed wire is an affordable and efficient way of keeping your animals penned up. While you can often buy cheaply made gi wire that will routinely break or come apart, the longer-lasting and more high-quality barbed wire will withstand even the most adventurous of animals.
The sharp barbs on the top of the panes of wire will cause injury to any animal that tries to get through it. By utilizing barbed wire on the end of a fence, animals are less likely to be able to quickly go through the fence to wander outside of their designated area. This is beneficial because animals are less likely to die or become injured if they cannot roam about freely.
During the American Civil War, one of the most infamous weapons used was barbed wire. They were used in military situations because they can be laid out in a pattern across fields and other open spaces to create an uncomfortable or impassable barrier. It has since then been modified to take on an offensive role on the battlefield. Used to slow progress of troop or vehicle movement, barbed wire forces enemies to take a more cautious approach in order to avoid getting injured.
Barbed wire fences are an essential survival tool for people wishing to protect their land from unwanted intruders. It is easy to install on most projects, making it an excellent choice for short-term or long-term fencing. The wire comes in different sizes and is easy to install
There are two different types of barbed wire, smooth wire and hog wire. It is important to note that Hogwire is coarser than smooth wire and allows more air through when it is installed, which can enable plants to grow around it, Barbed wire usually comes in coils and can be cut to the desired length needed. It is easy to take down as well if the need arises.
It’s easy to use in residential and commercial areas because it does not require posts or stakes. It is a time-tested fencing choice for rural properties with less than one acre of space. This product is durable and will last for many years!
During the Civil War, barbed wire saved lives and helped bring about peace. The fence had been around and used for agricultural purposes for many years before the war. Still, it was not until the Union Army captured a Confederate shipment of wire that they realized that it could be a way to help themselves.
Security is one of the most essential things in human life. It provides us with a sense of safety and assurance among the many difficult times we experience in life. Our homes are typically considered a place where we feel pretty secure, and barbed wire fences may factor into this feeling. Many rural citizens have barbed wire fences around their property for this exact reason.
Barbed wire fencing is a durable, inexpensive material to use for animal containment on farms. It’s a fencing option that has been in use for over 140 years now and costs less than other materials you might consider. You can purchase barbed wire by the foot or buy it in spools, which equals 500 feet. They are also easy to transport because it is folded and compact.
Long-lasting is one the main barbed wire advantages. If you want to save time and money in the long run, barbed wire fencing installation is the way to go.
Barbed wire is an excellent alternative to chain link as it has a low upkeep cost and can be installed in around the same amount of time. This is because it can be taken down and reused, whereas the chain link has to be replaced when the need arises. Chain link is also more expensive than barbed wire. Low upkeep and cheaper alternative is thus also one of the barbed wire advantages.
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Bordered fences use barbed wire to serve as a barrier to passersby. More often seen at construction sites, barbed wire fences are made using the wire’s natural properties. A barb is given to the bottom side of a strand of wire that will get stuck in the person’s clothes when touched by a person.
Barbed wire fences are most commonly used as perimeter fence to keep livestock from wandering off the property. But they can also be a beautiful decoration in the garden! The best way to use a barbed-wire fence in the yard is by using it as a trivet to hold potted flowers and plants. This will add some dimension to your garden and can even serve as an additional area.
Be sure to check out our Essential Barbed Wire Guide
As one of the three classic technological innovations that assisted in the economic development of the western United States (the others being the windmill and the revolver), barbed wire played a vital role in the development of the prairie-plains of Indian Territory after the Civil War. "Barbed wire" consists of one or more strands of metal wire implanted with sharpened metal spikes, or barbs, at regular intervals. Smooth-wire fencing was in general use when the first practical barbed wire appeared in , created in New York by Michael Kelly. Because it used very sharp spikes, which often caused injuries to horses, cattle, and men, it was nicknamed "vicious" wire. In Joseph Glidden patented a more marketable "obvious" barbed wire (with larger, dull-pointed, and safer barbs). Although hundreds of varieties were patented, the most popular were 2-Point Baker and 2-Point Glidden. While most historians generally credit farmers with being the first to use the new product, in the Indian Territory barbed wire was first adopted by cattlemen soon after its invention.
After the Civil War ended in the Indian Territory, cattle raising became an important economic activity, both among the American Indian nations, to whom the region belonged, and to white ranchers from Texas or elsewhere who leased grazing land from them. Contemporary ranching practice on the Great Plains, and also in the prairie-plains of the Indian Territory, allowed cattle to freely roam and graze, restricted only by canyons, rivers, and other natural barriers. Cowboys kept the herds within the owner's range, doctored and branded them, and protected them from predators and thieves. Whether conducted by American Indians or by white lessees, open-range ranching was the common practice until the introduction of barbed-wire fences.
Open-range ranching gave rise to the semiannual roundup, spring and fall, in which cowboys from various ranches combined their efforts to gather the animals. When the cattle had been assembled in one place, they were sorted by brand, and each owner herded his own animals back to his territory. After the spring roundup the cattle were moved to the southern ranges. After the fall roundup cattle were selected to be sent to market. Cattle raised in this way were usually wild, tough longhorns capable of surviving the environmental disasters that might befall animals wandering in "loose" herds. The roundup proceeded in a circuit from ranch to ranch. For example, ranchers in the Cherokee Outlet organized a roundup circuit as early as , and it extended into Kansas. Another circuit started in northeastern New Mexico and moved eastward into present Oklahoma. In the Chickasaw Nation one of several circuits began at Atoka (in the Choctaw Nation) and moved northwest and then north to present Ada, southwest to near present Roff and Sulphur, and back to Atoka.
The open-range system on the plains allowed interregional herd movement. In winter, Kansas cattle sometimes drifted southward from the Platte and Arkansas rivers into the Public Land Strip or Cherokee Strip or southward from the Beaver (North Canadian) River into more southerly ranges, even as far south as the Little and Red rivers. Fencing could correct the problem, and thus the barbed-wire product found early application in the Texas Panhandle.
In –81 cattlemen there constructed a 175-mile-long drift fence from the Indian Territory border westward to New Mexico. Its probable location was approximately fifteen miles south of the southern border of the Strip (or No Man's Land, the Oklahoma Panhandle). Opposition to this kind of long-distance fencing surfaced in the severe winters of the mid-s when thousands of cattle piled up against the wire and died during a series of blizzards. The catastrophe was a huge financial loss and ever after has been known as the "big die-up." Nevertheless, during the s closed-land ranching developed as the norm throughout the Indian Territory.
In the Cherokee Outlet of northern Indian Territory, large-scale cattle raising developed in the late s. Individual Texas cattlemen and corporate ranch managers began to enclose numerous areas with fences beginning in , generally with the Cherokees' approval. These barriers, using locally cut timber as fence posts and strung with barbed wire, allowed a rancher to keep his herds on their home range and prevented other herds from using his grazing lands. Cattlemen enclosed horse pastures to keep cattle out, marked cattle ranges to keep herds from drifting too far, and separated areas to protect other property. Fences also halted the incursions of potentially Texas fever–infected cattle from south of the Red River. However, in early the U.S. Department of the Interior decided that the fencing was an "improvement" (implying land ownership) and threatened to remove all of it. This stimulated the ranchmen to incorporate the Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association in early . It soon negotiated a five-year land lease with the Cherokee Nation. The fencing was declared to be temporary, was deemed property of the Cherokee Nation, and was allowed to remain. When the lease was ended, the federal government ordered all cattle to be removed from the Outlet by October . Ranchers removed their cattle but left much of the fencing. It was salvaged by ranchers from Kansas and later by area farmers after the Cherokee Outlet opening of September . South of the Outlet, a similar drift fence extended westward from Vici for several miles.
Among the five major southeastern tribes of the Indian Territory, land was owned in common, and fencing was not a traditional way to protect property or cattle. In the Cherokee Nation the range generally remained unfenced until Texas ranchers began leasing land there. Officially, the Cherokee Nation remained all free range, although observers noted fifteen- to twenty-mile-long drift fences in places, sometimes eight or ten miles apart. After allotment, free range no longer existed, as Indians thereafter held small plots, and most of the cattlemen left.
In the Chickasaw Nation of south-central Oklahoma, open-range ranching was practiced on a small scale before the Civil War. Chickasaws ranched extensively, running an estimated 140,000 head in their nation by . They also used the new wire. For example, Montford T. Johnson and his son E. B. (Edward) operated a sizeable ranch on the western side of the nation. E. B. Johnson observed the use of barbed wire on a trip to the East in , and he brought back enough to enclose a mile-square horse pasture. After observing that the wire did not cut up his livestock, his neighbors also began using it. In the s, because the white ranchers had been enclosing huge ranges with wire, thereby impeding traffic across the nation and implying an "ownership" of the land by non-Indians, the Chickasaw Nation's legislature limited pastures to 640 acres. In April the Chickasaw legislature empowered Ben Pikey and a group of other ranchers to build a "barb wire drift line" along the entire length of the main (South) Canadian River in their home county, in order to protect their property from settlers coming into the Unassigned Lands to the north. By , when the allotment of Chickasaw lands to individual Indians was complete, pasture fences had become common.
In Old Greer County, technically a part of Texas until , Texas cattlemen also practiced free-range cattle raising and used barbed wire to keep their herds apart. Numerous interviews in the s Indian-Pioneer History Collection refer to lengthy fences running north and south and in one instance, the Day Land and Cattle Company apparently erected one east to west across the entire region. Anecdotal mention is also made of cattle freezing to death by piling up against barbed-wire fences during the "big die-up."
Barbed-wire fencing gradually became useful for keeping cattle out of, rather than within, areas. As homesteaders and other settlers moved into newly opened regions, they adopted the practice of fencing their fields. William Beaumont, who in settled near present Mangum, claimed to have fenced the first ten-acre farming patch in Old Greer County. However, American Indian ranchers such as E. B. Johnson saw barbed wire's other utility, and he fenced in several mile-square plots and hired farmers to grow various crops there.
The spread of barbed-wire fencing spelled the end of the open-range cattle industry and the roundup circuit as well. Ultimately, and more importantly, fencing of grazing land in all areas of Oklahoma has facilitated the development of high-grade, registered cattle breeds, such as the Hereford and the Angus, that produce superior, more marketable beef. In the process, as noted by Great Plains historian Walter Prescott Webb, the open range gave way to the enclosed pasture, and "ranching" became "stock-farming." The primary beneficiaries of barbed wire, however, were the homesteaders who came to Oklahoma Territory in the numerous land runs and other openings, established farms, and put up fences. Many farmers added cattle raising to their agricultural pursuits. The cattle industry remained a significant income-producing activity throughout the twentieth century in Oklahoma, due in large part to the universal adoption of barbed-wire fencing in the s.