Site of an Early Barbed Wire Fence in the Panhandle

Glidden's patent, granted on November 24, 1874, covered barbs wrapped around one strand of wire and locked in place by twisting it around a second. Sold as the Winner, it became the most commercially successful of hundreds of barbed wire designs. In 1876 Glidden and Isaac L. Ellwood sold their interests to Washburn and Moen of Massachusetts. That same year salesmen John W. Gates and Pete McManus staged a famous demonstration on Alamo Plaza in San Antonio, where a fence of Winner wire held a herd of longhorns. Fence-cutting conflicts followed in the early 1880s.

What the plaque says

Site of an Early Barbed Wire Fence in the Panhandle In the latter 1880s, when fencing was needed in the treeless Texas Panhandle, the solution proved to be barbed wire. Joseph F. Glidden of Illinois devised and by 1876 was manufacturing (with I. L. Ellwood) the first really practical barbed wire on the market. H. B. Sanborn was sent to Texas as their agent, and remained to become a builder of the Panhandle. Wanting free access to water and grass, ranchers at first resisted fencing. Cowboys disliked it, as fewer range riders were needed on fenced lands. The old-timers grew bitter, because of blocked trails -- herds had to be hauled rather than driven to market. Yet, newcomers wanted fencing, in oder to have use of land purchased for ranching. Merchants and city-builders wanted fences, to assure settlement. The T-Anchor, owned by Jot Gunter and William B. Munson, real estate investors of Grayson County, built a line fence on this site in 1881, enclosing a 240,000-acre horse pasture. Also, built in this area, by popular subscription, was a "drift" fence to hold cattle back from wandering south in blue northers and blizzards. Barbed wire gradually came into general use. It saved the cattle industry, because improvements in breeding and feeding were possible on fenced ranges. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum — 0.7 mi
  The Panhandle's great collection, some two million objects behind a 1933 Art Deco hall carved with cattle brands, closed to the public since March 2025 over fire-safety violations.
• Palo Duro Canyon State Park — 12 mi
  The upper end of the canyon the state bought in 1933, where CCC crews built the road to the floor and the army burned the winter camps of the Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne in 1874.
• TEXAS Outdoor Musical — 12 mi
  A summer pageant of Panhandle settler life staged since 1966 in the Pioneer Amphitheater, built into a basin of Palo Duro Canyon below a 600-foot cliff.
• Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
  A 1938 Depression-era lake on Tierra Blanca Creek that has gone dry, now 7,664 acres of shortgrass, cottonwood canyon and a prairie dog town on the High Plains south of Umbarger.

More markers nearby

• Company F, 2nd Battalion, 142nd Infantry, 36th Division, Texas National Guard — steps away
• Lucille Nance Jones — 0.2 mi
• Georgia O'Keeffe in Canyon — 0.6 mi
• J. Evetts Haley — 0.6 mi