Tribute To Barbed Wire: Barbed wire balls mounted on limestone welcome visitors to the Devil’s Rope Museum and the Texas Route 66 Museum in McLean, Texas. The spacious facility is home to both museums giving visitors a view of what the west was like before modern cities and interstate highways existed. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Creative Display: The Devil’s Rope Museum features many displays which show the various designs and types of barbed wire. This creative display is a case that when open (as seen) shows the wire in a circular fashion similar to a wagon wheel. Around the edge is the name and description of each of the wires shown. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Wire Collection: A wire display shows various designs of barbed wire and how ranchers spliced the wire when needed to extend the length of the wire. Barbed wire is considered the product that tamed the American west during the frontier days. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
By GARY WARREN
Photographer
Formerly of Los Alamos
We rolled up to the Devil’s Rope Museum in McLean, Texas the morning of Nov. 1 during a recent trip only to find the doors locked. We could see a couple working inside and they met us at the door. It turned out that the museum is open March-October and we showed up on Nov. 1.
The workers were more than happy to welcome us, gave us a background on the museum and let us tour the place as long as we wanted while they worked on preparing the museum for the winter months off. We were thrilled to be able to stay because this really is two museums under one roof.
Sitting just a few feet from the original Route 66 highway, the large building that housed the Devil’s Rope Museum also is home to a Texas Route 66 Museum. Even the building itself had an interesting beginning as it was a brassiere factory that employed hundreds while in operation. The factory closed in the 1970s almost 20 years before the Devil’s Rope Museum opened. This Post From the Road will feature the Devil’s Rope Museum but the Route 66 Museum contained many interesting photos, artifacts and memorabilia from the era when the “Mother Road” passed across the Texas panhandle.
The majority of space in the building was all about the “devil’s rope” thus the name Devil’s rope Museum. When we arrived at the Devil’s Rope Museum we were met with two three foot diameter balls of rusty barbed wire tightly woven into the balls. Each ball was displayed and supported by a Texas limestone pedestal. A third tightly woven barbed wire sculpture that looked like a hay bale sat on the ground between the two pedestals. There was no doubt; this museum was about the American west and how the west was settled.
Most visitors to the museum have no idea of the history of barbed wire. In frontier days there were no fences, and cattle and horses grazed the open plains across most of the west. Barbed wire was invented in the 1870s by Joseph Gladden of DeKalb, Ill.
The original design for barbed wire was a wire with barbs or sharp points about every six inches, which was wrapped by a second wire that had no barbs to increase strength of the wire. It could also be manufactured at a reasonable cost.
Today there are as many as 2,000 different barb wire designs, which eventually led to the Devil’s Rope Museum’s existence. Ranchers and cowboys would collect various designs of the wire and display their collections for others to see. Wire manufactures also had various designs which were used in a variety of different ways that became a part of the museum.
So what is so important about the history of barbed wire? Barbed wire contributed and led to the end of open range ranching and cattle drives which were a part of that culture. Barbed wire deterred Indian raids which were prevalent in the 1800s. Perhaps the biggest reason for barbed wire’s use in the American west was it delineated property boundaries.
Property boundaries were becoming more and more important in the later 1800s following the Homestead Act of 1862. Americans were already moving westward into the new frontier and the Homestead Act provided that “any citizen who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land”.
Barbed wire played a huge part in this part of the history of the American west. Barbed wire gave us control of land variations and property boundaries. Barbed wire tamed the American west and may be one of the most significant products of the Industrial Revolution!
Why is barbed wire called the “devil’s rope”? After the introduction of the wire, religious groups protested against its use because it was harmful to horses, cattle and other animals as well as humans. They referred to barb wire as the work of the devil and referred to barb wire as “the devil’s rope”.
The Devil’s Rope Museum is a tribute to barbed wire and its role in the history and settlement of the American west. The museum was founded in 1991 by rancher Delbert Trew to showcase his and many other barbed wire collections, all tools used in fencing and ranching, and make others aware of the importance of barbed wire.
This is a fascinating museum about all things involved in barb wire fencing but it also informs visitors of the various fencing tools, post hold diggers, wire stretchers, and even different types of posts used in the process. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the museum and very much appreciated the workers allowing us to enter on the first day of closing!
Editor’s note: Longtime Los Alamos photographer Gary Warren and his wife Marilyn are traveling around the country, and he shares his photographs, which appear in the “Posts from the Road” series published in the Sunday edition of the Los Alamos Daily Post.
Scorpion: The Devil’s Rope Museum features many ways that barbed wire is used to create art pieces. Shown is a sculpture of a scorpion which was made and donated by Bob Letgen of Aztec, N.M. The creative use of barb wire for art pieces was impressive. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Fencing Tools: Construction of fences was just a part of the barbed wire museum. Fence maintenance and repairs quickly became an important part of ranch life. Shown are smaller, more portable fencing tools, which allowed ranchers to make repairs to fences as needed. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Fence Posts: Different types of posts were used in various parts of the country depending on soil and other variables. Shown is this display were variations in posts and wood used to make posts. To the right is a display of various post mauls and sledge hammers used to install fence posts. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Museum Interior: The Devil’s Rope Museum is a comprehensive collection of all things used to build and maintain barb wire fences. The museum collection is very impressive and visitors can learn and appreciate the uses for barb wire fencing and the important role it played in the history of the American west. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com