Barbed wire & the end of Lucas County's prairie

I got to wondering the other day, after writing a little about the practice of commons grazing during Lucas County's early days, about just when barbed wire was introduced here. Barbed wire --- then woven wire --- allowed farmers to turn the countryside into the patchwork of clearly defined private properties we're familiar with today.

During Lucas County's first 25 years, roughly 1850 to 1875, split-rail fences probably were the most common --- and these were constructed defensively for the most part. The goal was to keep roaming livestock, domestic and wild, out of planted areas. Household gardens and fields of corn, for example. 

But rail fencing was wasteful of resources to build and maintain and relied upon a ready supply of timber to be practical. So vast areas of prairie, although by 1870 privately owned, remained unfenced, unbroken and open to commons grazing. 

John Faith, editor of The Chariton Democrat, offered some advice in his edition of Feb. 22, 1868. He suggested that if farmers fenced to restrain their own livestock rather than to deter everyone else's, more efficient development could occur. Here's his advice:

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Did our farmers ever consider how much might be saved in improving their farms if they were not compelled to fence against hogs and sheep? In many counties in the northern part of the State, where fencing can be made as cheaply as here, the people think it economy to restrain hogs and sheep from running at large and thereby save at least one-third of the expense of fencing.

By the laws of this State, counties may adopt such rules as they please on this subject, and we would suggest to our people the importance of an early consideration of the subject. There is not one-sixth part of the land in the County fenced, and unless some means are adopted whereby fencing may be done cheaper than now, it will be many years before we can hope to see our great expanse of wild lands improved.

At the present time, material sufficient to construct a good, substantial fence, five boards high, costs about $1.70. By restraining hogs and sheep, two boards, or 17 feet of lumber, worth fifty-one cents (at three cents per foot) a rod might be saved. This saving would induce many farmers to improve land who now think the expense too great to make it profitable to improve wild land.

At present, it is almost impossible for a poor man to make a farm upon our large prairies, where timber is scarce and dear, and has to be hauled so far. We hope our farmers will give this matter an early and thoughtful consideration, and adopt some means to facilitate the improvement of the waste lands, as they are now only a cause of expense, in the way of taxation.

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As it turns how, a little time and innovation offered another route. Farmers toyed for a time with "living fences" --- usually Osage Orange hedges --- but in the long run these proved to be impractical.

Jacob Haish generally is credited with perfecting barbed wire in his shop at DeKalb, Illinois, during the 1870s. His first offering, although not especially practical, was patented during 1873. During August of 1875 he patented the "S" barb --- an innovation that revolutionized American agriculture.

By November of 1875, Soper & Smith --- hardware merchants on the north side of the Chariton Square --- were offering "Haish's patented barbed wire fencing, the best thing invented yet."

J. Fletcher Smith shed his partner that winter and re-opened independently in the same location during January --- advertising hanks (coils) of barbed wire fencing.

The rest, as they say, is history. Woven wire followed barbed wire into the property owner's tool chest during 1883 and by 1900, after another 25 years had passed, Lucas County's prairie was for the most part gone and the boundaries of the fields and pastures it had been subdivided into were neatly outlined with wire.