Ep. 110: The Barbed Wire Barons
from Fascinating Nouns
In my days at Northern Illinois University, I learned that DeKalb, IL was ground zero for barbed wire. At the time, I had no idea how historically important this was, but especially after learning about the Wild West, I came to realize that barbed wire made living on the open range possible. No one knows more about DeKalb history than Steve Bigolin. Of course we chat about the Big Three Barb Wire Barons (Jacob Haish, Joseph Glidden, Issac Ellwood), but we also discuss early patents, how to turn a barbed wire fence in to a telephone, a heist that saw a priceless historic piece of barbed wire stolen, and how one of their historic mansions was bulldozed to make way for a church parking lot!
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