• Before the invention of barbed wire, ranchers built fences out of wood or stone to confine livestock. In the Plains region, wood was scarce and had to be shipped from the East.

• Early wire fences were a single strand. "[P]laced between a 1,000-pound Texas longhorn and a patch of lush green pasture, [this fencing] proved to be something of a pushover," according to writer George Pendle.

• Lucien B. Smith of Kent, Ohio, is credited with making the first "thorny wire" in the 1860s. Joseph F. Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois, received a patent in 1874 for a barbed wire that was easily manufactured. Glidden’s barbed wire became the most widely used in the country.

• Widespread use of barbed wire in ranching impacted the movement of people and animals and led to many land disputes. Some would refer to barbed wire as the “Devil’s Rope.”