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Introduction of "the devil's rope" transformed ranch life forever

By The Associated Press

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Cattle ranching first came to southwestern Idaho in the 1860s, mainly to feed the thousands of men in nearby mining camps around Silver City.

Cowboying in the West had already been through centuries of evolution, stemming from the tradition of the Spanish vaquero (the word was later corrupted by English speakers to become "buckaroo," which simply means "hired ranch hand") and dating to the time of the early 16th-century Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez.

Federal land was freely available, and cowboys kept their cattle on the hoof, moving on before the vegetation was grazed off.

Then in 1873, inventor Joseph F. Glidden changed the West forever with his patent on a new kind of fence: the barbed wire. "The devil's rope," as it was sometimes called, spelled the end of the traditional vaquero.

No longer were riders and their dogs needed to keep the cattle together. The fence did it all.

Barbed-wire fencing in the West has been controversial ever since — from the "Fence Cutter Wars" in the later 19th century that pitted free-range cattlemen against landowners, to today's bitter fights between ranchers and environmentalists.

Source: "Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries" by David Dary, University Press of Kansas

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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