The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958 Page: 208
591 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The collection is displayed in two ways. The original exhibit
is a half-wagon wheel design showing wire taken from many parts
of the United States and some foreign countries. Around the
wheel are mounted samples of fencing which were in use before
the advent of barbed wire-split rail, bois d'arc and Cherokee
rose branches, and five types of smooth wire with no barbs-and
in the hub, forming the axle of the wheel, appears a small semi-
circle sample of modern electric fence wire. Within the wheel,
arranged in general chronological order, are samples which show
the gradual changes in styling from the earliest types to present-
day barbed wire.
The second display2 shows only wire found in the state of
Texas, with the exception of two of the three strands of war wire
in the center grouping (to be explained in detail later). In this
exhibit, samples are stapled to a fine old Texas map compiled and
drawn in 1874, the very year in which the all-important Glidden
patent on barbed wire was granted. Much of the wire on the two
displays is the same, but for the purposes of this paper, the pieces
shown on the all-Texas collection will suffice unless stated to the
contrary. It should be noted, however, that in both exhibits the
aforementioned chain-link wire is given a position of prominence,
for reasons more sentimental than historical. The chain wire is
extremely unusual fencing, probably not manufactured for very
long a time because it is essentially poor fencing through its
tendency to sag. In the writer's experience over a period of
eighteen years of collecting, he has found it in only two Texas
counties to date. But more to the point is the fact that this was
the first rare type which attracted his attention and gave rise
originally to the idea of making a collection of barbed wire. This
type is shown in the half-wagon wheel design as the rim of the
wheel and, on the map, paralleling the course of the Rio Grande
between Texas and Mexico. The chain sample is made up of
separate strips of wire, each about ten inches long, the ends of
which are folded back to the middle and twisted in opposite direc-
tions to form the barb. The second sample taken for the collection,
a flat ribbon wire, is shown on the half-wagon wheel as the base of
ISee Figure i.
sSee Figure 3.2o8
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958, periodical, 1958; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101164/m1/252/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.