AUTUMN 2019 EQUUS 498 85
Another of Glidden’s managers owned
a ranch north of Dallas and in 1881
enclosed 120 miles of land in barbed
wire at a cost of only $39,000 (more
than $1 million today). One satisfi ed
customer wrote to Glidden: “[Barbed
wire] takes no room, exhausts no soil,
shades no vegetation, is proof against
high winds, makes no snowdrifts, and
is both durable and cheap.”
Useful as it was for fencing in cattle,
barbed wire was equally useful for
fencing them out. Farmers on the Great
Plains at last had a way to keep cattle
out of their plowed fi elds, and in fact
it was farmers who were the fi rst to
appreciate Glidden’s invention. Barbed
wire not only kept cattle out but also
discouraged inroads by deer, elk and
sheep. Roaming herds of bison that had
once made crop-growing impossible
on the High Plains were by that date,
however, no longer much of a problem;
from an estimated population of more
than 60 million in 1790, hunters
licensed by Congress decimated the
herds as part of a strategy to eradicate
the Plains Indian lifestyle. In 1870
only 5.5 million bison remained, and
by 1890 they teetered on the brink
of extinction. Bison herds were also
hunted because they would sometimes
block the passage of trains. The
Transcontinental Railroad, completed
by the driving of the Golden Spike at
Promontory Summit, Utah, in May of
1869, cut the bison range in half.
Barbed wire fences closed almost
all parts of the open range. “Cattle
barons” embraced barbed wire as a
way to enforce their boundaries, evict
squatters and trespassers, and block
competitors’ access to grass and water.
However, in many instances they
overstepped their bounds by fencing
public lands. “Fence wars” broke out
during the 1880s as smallholdersChicaro Bill (1930, 15:1 hands) was by Chicaro, a 16-hand
Thoroughbred of the Touchstone branch of the Eclipse
family, and out of Verna Grace by Little Joe. Verna Grace’s
dam was a Thoroughbred mare called Johnny Wilkens by
Horace H., but not related to the stallion Johnny Wilkins
stood by the JA. Chicaro, a son of the imported *Chicle, was
the first Thoroughbred used at the King Ranch but he had
sired numerous foals before, including Flying Bob. He is the
grandsire or great-grandsire of several horses in this article.
He exemplifies conformation predisposing to racing ability,
with a more sloping pelvis, longer cannon bones and longer
back than would be desired in a cutter, reiner or rope horse.nearly the same time. Glidden won the
lawsuits, the other men patented their
own designs, and all three founded
factories that were soon producing
barbed wire by the ton.
To demonstrate the effectiveness
of his new product, Glidden bought
acreage in Texas and in 1881 started
the Frying Pan Ranch near Amarillo.
He brought in bales of wire by wagon
from the railhead at Dodge City, while
narrow, twisted cedar posts---useless
for lumber but suffi cient for holding up
fi ve strands of wire---came from brush
growing in the Palo Duro Canyon and
along the Canadian River. Glidden
bought 12,000 head of longhorns,
hired a ranch manager, and began
demonstrating how pastures and cattle
could be managed with cross-fencing.CHICARO BILL