Devil's Rope

Growing up the offspring of redneck dirt farmers from Texas, I have never been able to escape the tetanus-inducing grip of barbed wire. When visiting family in Pampa, Texas (see; nowheresville) barbed wire was as natural a sight as sheep at my uncle's back door after dark. You saw it everywhere, mile upon uncountable mile. It came in more varieties than Jimmy Chu's shoes and probably felt as good to walk in. Barbed wire, however taken for granted it may be, has played an integral role in American's life out west. The human animal is a builder of barriers, using materials like mud, wood, and stone. The Great Plains have none of these (the KENDA wherehouse in Ohio is made of buffalo dung and straw) and settlers were forced to create a new style of fencing to retain their livestock.
In the late nineteenth century, smooth wire was strung between sticks to create livestock fencing. This was of little deterrance for multi-ton animals that would simply lean into it and flatten it allowing easy access to the "greener grass on the other side." With several early ideas that failed to take off, a man named Joseph Glidden created and manufactured the first widely accepted barbed wire. Soon, there would be over five hundred patents for barbed wire. With the success of this new wire, open range cattle ranching (now returning to favor) was soon to be extinct. Large fenced in ranches dominated the plains and created the practices seen to the current day.
The expanding American West was not the only place to find barbed wire, or the inventions of Mr. Glidden. At the onset of World War I, he had a great financial plan. He would manufacture "war wire" and sell it to whoever would pay. War wire was a much more lethal wire, with alrger and more tightly spaced barbs of all types. He also went into the arms business, proclaiming to "Let the Europeans kill themselves, so we don't have to." The Germans were first to use it in the war, and to great effect. The oncoming French and British Expeditionary Forces fell like dominoes under the slowing effects of barbed wire...and Glidden's newest invention, the machine gun.
Not to be outdone by a mere wire, Mr. Glidden sold thousands of machine guns to the German Weirmacht. He also licensed his design to the British, to be built by the Vickers company (who also made aircraft). Thinning more than herds of cattle, the Devil's Rope saw many a young man's life pass while bullets whizzed by.
So, the next time you are cruising around Flagstaff, rolling through Ahmanson Ranch, or shooting cans on the farm in Plano, keep in mind that little pointy thing that keeps tearing meaty holes in your lycra. It, too has a history all it's own.

C