The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 70, July 1966 - April, 1967 Page: 250
728 p. : maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
was preparing thirty-seven bushels of charcoal which had been
pre-sold at 75 cents each. He estimated that he had an order
about once every two or three months. But most of those who
would once have been charcoal burners have become choppers.
The transition was stimulated by increased cedar clearing, by
development of railroads and of the Model T truck which made it
practical to carry posts to market without first reducing them to
charcoal, and by declining use of charcoal-heated flatirons.
The development of barbed wire fencing created the first great
demand for cedar fence posts in Texas.
Barbed wire in quantity was first offered for sale in Texas late in
1879.... Rapid enclosure of the open lands [followed, and] in
the long run barbed wire revolutionized land value in Texas and
made possible the opening of homesteads in the frontier plains area.17
Walter Prescott Webb in his study of The Great Plains noted
that as westward-moving Americans left the wooded environment
of the eastern United States in the late nineteenth century, they
entered an increasingly treeless region of central prairies.s Fenc-
ing materials used in the East, such as rails and stones, were no
longer available. Barbed wire was ideally suited for the new region
because it was cheaper, and faster and easier to erect without wast-
ing ground. Once livestock became accustomed to it, such fencing
effectively stopped and held them.
Early fencing and post cutting were done by ranchers, farmers,
and their employees. One ranch "spent $39,000 on wire and post
alone"'" in 1879. A railroad west from Mineral Wells made ship-
ment of cedar posts possible and created a need for crews of
cutters in the years that followed. Thus cedar chopping in the
northern cedar country and charcoal burning in the southern
seem to have begun at the same period and blended, especially
as the need to clear ranch land stimulated the demand for both
groups.
Cedar was used for fencing prior to the introduction of barbed
wire. An early traveler noted that:
17Walter Prescott Webb and H. Bailey Carroll (eds.), The Handbook. of Texas
(2 vols.; Austin, 1952), I, 11o.
sWalter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Boston, 1931), 290o-318.
19R. D. Holt, "The Introduction of Barbed Wire into Texas and the Fence
Cutting War," West Texas Historical Association Year Book, VI, 69.250
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 70, July 1966 - April, 1967, periodical, 1967; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101199/m1/268/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.