Author: Harold D. Jobes
HAROLD D. JOBES, a sixth-generation Texan, grew up on a ranch in Kimble County and graduated from Southwest Texas State College. After serving in the US Army, he entered Texas state government, from which he retired as a government executive and returned to ranching. Jobes is a longstanding member of the Texas State Historical Association, the Wild West History Association, the Antique Barbed Wire Collectors Association, and the West Texas Historical Association, as well as being a past president of the Edwards Plateau Historical Association. He has published in the Wild West History Association’s Journal and has many papers in the Edwards Plateau Historical Association’s publication, the Edwards Plateau Historian.
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Works Published by UNT Press
Barbs, Bullets, and Blood: The 1880s Texas Barbed Wire Wars
Published: June, 2025 Pages: 448 Features: 50 b&w illus. Notes. Bib. Index.
In 1874 Joseph Glidden patented and manufactured the nation’s first barbed wire, and the next year Henry Sanborn came to Texas selling Glidden’s wire to cattlemen. Sales increased each year, and in 1883 Sanborn sold Texas ranchers one million dollars’ worth of barbed wire, but free-range cattle advocates and homesteaders revolted against the barbed wire fences; more than half of Texas’s counties experienced fence cutting. In the eyes of some Texans, barbed-wire fences stopped cattle drives, interfered with homesteading, and wrecked the state’s economy, but the act of fence cutting precipitated extreme levels of violence between the ranchers and the fence cutters. Fence cutting occurred as far north as Montana, but no state suffered the magnitude of fence cutting and violence as in Texas. more... about Barbs, Bullets, and Blood: The 1880s Texas Barbed Wire Wars