barbed wire

Fencing material made of wire with sharp intermittent barbs used to contain livestock within a fenced area by causing discomfort and possible injury upon contact.[1]

First developed in France in the late 1860s, but remained little-known or -used in America until the 1870s. Not until November of 1874 was a design of barbed wire made practical enough in manufacture and cost to be widely marketable. By 1876, barbed wire was being promoted across the American West as a cheap, durable method for containing cattle.[1]

In it's early days, barbed wire was reviled by many cattlemen for it's danger to cattle moving across the open range. But as the frontier became more and more parceled between the increasing numbers of farms and ranches over the next ten years, its benefits began to become more appreciated and accepted. Eventually, the wide-spread use of barbed wire resulted in the closing of the West's open ranges, and marked the beginning of modern ranching.[1]

The Jeweled Gun: In April of 1876,[3] Bart Maverick and Daisy Haskell traveled by stage with a barbed wire fence salesman, who was enthusiastic in the promotion of his product. Daisy was unfamiliar with barbed wire but a cattleman, also on the stage, expressed his contempt for barbed wire, calling it "an invention to kill off cattle… either by starvation or tearing them to bits."[4]

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