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Fencing the West

by | Sep 14, 2018 | Western Books, Western Books & Movies

The open range in this country was doomed in 1873 when three men from DeKalb, Illinois—Jacob Haish, Joseph Glidden and Isaac Ellwood—each filed patents on what Glidden perhaps immodestly but accurately termed “The Invention That Shaped the Nation.” A new type of fencing was needed for the vast and treeless Great Plains, and barbed wire met that need perfe


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