In the beginning years of ranching, there was no wire or anything, just open range. Many head of cattle died on the land because they could not be found. Some cattle were even eaten by Indians. When Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire, it revolutionized the West and brought many advantages and disadvantages because of how it was designed. When Joseph Glidden saw the problem of bare wire not keeping animals in their pen. Wooden fence taking too long to build, he came up with the idea of barbed wire. He saw that there might be a lot of people who do not like the idea of barbed wire and do not use it because it could hurt the animals. With all of that aside, he still pushed on in the hope that his invention was going to be popular. (Allison) As he started making barbed wire, he was becoming more popular and making more money. …show more content…
By the time Joseph was 60 years old, he was starting to get ideas for the next barbed wire. Bennett: Some ranchers say that barbed wire is a pain because they like the open range. Others say that barbed wire is a good invention because now they can keep the reins on their cattle closer. The ranchers that didn’t like barbed wire mostly had goats and sheep that would crawl through the wire. They didn’t like barbed wire, mainly because they had to take time to build a fence. (Gipson) The ranchers that did like the wire had mostly cattle and liked to be able to check their cattle every day and not have to worry about looking for them. They didn’t like the fence-building part, but they said it was worth it in the long run. A lot of ranchers hire young men to build barbed wire fences for them. Hayes. The first barbed wire fence was a nail stuck in a piece of wood fencing. This was hard to maintain and build. As time went on, Glidden came up with a better idea for putting a barb on