Noted: The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum

Very interesting! This article really shows you that there is a history to everything we see...even those things we hardly notice!

never put to much thought into barbed wire before, interesting

cool! who knew there was an encyclopedia of barbed wire?!?

the variety!

wow, never knew the intricacies of barbed wire and its history...cool article and collection!

I have fond memories of a horse in Oklahoma, a bottle of tequila, a barbed wire fence and the pants I left behind. Long story.

what a cool museum! love how they show the different types of wire... very inspiring.

So many different types of barbed wire! Amazing!

Love this article! Being a Kansan myself, I can relate with the sense of pride that stems from somewhat overlooked items.

Still have the old coat I tore the back off of climbing over the stuff...genius invention =)

That is really cool.

Wow!! who knew? Love odd ball things like this

This is why I am an Etsy citizen. I love the blogs you post daily. Keep'em coming. Great piece of historical information. Thank you!

You have a very clever blog and well written. Like reading it. This is a very interesting educational story.

What an interesting article. I hadn't thought that something which is so common was once a history forming product. Thanks for enlightening me.

OK, I'll admit that as a kid I noticed that there were different patterns of barbed wire, but I just thought it was too nerdy to mention... which is saying a lot as I live in an area where the kids (used to, at least) have posters of tractors on their bedroom walls rather than pop stars! :-) I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there are folks who collect it.

Never would have thought there to be so many types of barb wire. Very interesting.

Strangely enough I just saw this on a TV show called "101 ways to leave a game show"! It was in one of the questions! You know how things come in 2's and 3's! Thanks for the article!

I guess barbed wire is for more than just bad tattoos after all. Please keep teaching me new things!

That is interesting alright... but also Barcelonain Spain is one excellent city to find strange little museums of many kinds. One I particularly loved was a little old shoe museum hidden away down many winding narrow alleys. Just coming up to it was a small courtyard with a very old looking fountain and a huge wall with what looked like lots of bullet hole damage around head hight. There was a statue of a man up quite high in an enclave which some mad person had managed to get a purple feather boa onto. I dont know if it is still there as it's impossible to find in guide books, but It was run by a very sweet old man who could only speak Spanish and so followed me around with rough bits of paper with dates written on them. I would have liked to ask where all these amazing and ancient shoes came from but alas my Spanish was nil on my ! week trip.

Holla from DeKalb, IL, home of barbed wire! This is where Joseph Glidden and his partner Issaac Ellwood made their wealth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeKalb,_Illinois The high school's mascot is the "barbie crow" and just about every other house has a plaque with barbed wires samples. A plaque that looks just like the walls pictured above.

Here in Philadelphia we have the Mutter Museum. I was terrified to go there when I was little because of all the preserved body parts and skulls. Creepy!!

Awesome! I so want to know more about everything we find on our property. So this is wonderfully interesting. Lovely also to have our barbed wire heart wreath featured, thank you!

This is a great feature. I've driven by the museum before (originally a small town Kansas girl myself), but have never been. Really great to see one of the neat quirks of the midwest getting some attention. How wonderful (and needed) is would be if this sort of thing could indeed be a tourist destination in Kansas. More Americans need to take the time to road trip through the heartland.

Interesting!

Hardcore - but slightly depressing. Thinking of the uses of the barbed wire against fellow human beings.

wish i knew - i could have collected all the barbed wire we used on the farm growing up.

Barbed wire or its history is not something I would think about, so I found this article quite interesting

Wow I never knew there was a museum to barbed wire... It's been not just iconic in its use though but it made it into fashion jewellery and as a visual metaphor for the barriers between people. It's had so many uses over the years!

Very interesting article. I just love the salesman's pitch "cheaper than dirt & stronger than steel". I would love to know what it cost a farmer to fence in their property in 1874...

Interesting to see the different variations of barbed wire in the display photo.

Soo cool. I always wanted a barbed wire collection as a kid.

Hey! We were just ther two weeks ago!!! Loved it...who'd have thought!!!

Ah Kansas!

one of my favourite museums is in cedar key, florida. an hour or so from tampa, it is a little town that once shared a sister town on an island a mile of coast that was destroyed by a hurricane in the 1800's. you can still canoe out to it to see the graves and remnants of the town. the museum itself is on cedar key and was created by a local resident who collected the shells that washed up on the shore. he obsessively collected and catalogued the shells and bits of glass. hundreds of thousands of some of the most unique shells i've ever seen. come to find out, after he died and his home was turned into a museum for the town of cedar key (a really interesting exhibit about the gulf tortoise there), some of those shells were found to have washed up from places as far away as africa and austrailia. a really charming, interesting, and lovely museum. i hope you check it out if ever you find yourself in that area. it's definitely worth it. cheers!

How interesting. Living in the country, you don't really give a second thought to barbed wire, it's just a part of live when you have animals. I never knew they made so many styles. Thanks for the article.

Barbed wire was a an extremely important innovation, even more important to American life than clumping cat litter.

So interesting. Barbed wire, who knew?! ;o)

I guess everything was invented at one time or another by someone. So who's next? I'm sure they are here at etsy!

I recall being stung by electrified barbed wire. A low current was run through the wire as a determent to wandering animals, and sometimes curious children, to keep them going where they would not be safe.

what an amazingly clever lady so nice to see people doing what they love .

There is also a display of historical barbed wires at the Cowboy and Western Museum in Oklahoma City. It is fascinating to learn about and to see the development of different barbed wire technologies.

I love that so much can be assessed about different eras of history by taking a closer look at technological innovations contemporary to the period. Innovation is one of my favorite ways to analyze history (History was my major in college:)) The things we use and see everyday will someday be the most telling about our culture. On another note... When I backpacked through Europe for a summer in college my 3 best friends and I were actually side tracked by "The Serial Killer" Museum in Florence, Italy during our walk to the Uffizi. It was so random that a museum devoted to the history of serial killers was located in Italy, given that statistically they have had a very small number of offenders throughout their history. Conversely, the US has the highest, I learned that in the museum... As a side-note, we never made it to the Uffizi. Just another reason to go back to Italy!

Joseph Glidden is our Great, Great, Great, Great?? Grandfather! We are proud to be a part of the wild west!! Kim and Karin Glidden

thanks for this info! i'm a kansan and i've never heard of this museum.

Super post! It was truly one of the greatest influences in the taming of the wild west. As for other oddball museums I have to say the Velveteria in Portland was one of my faves. Closed some time ago, but they still have a bit of a web presence - http://velveteria.com/

Another fellow DeKalb, IL person dropping in on the barbed wire topic! It's quite the hot stuff here in town, and the local high school's ID is even christened "The Barbs". Can't believe half interest in that first barbed wire patent was only $265.00! Would have liked to have gotten in on that one!

barbed wire is actually thought to have been a cause of the huge decline of buffalo throughout the west, making them easier prey to hunters and with fewer means of escape.

KS does have a nice wire museum, but don't forget about the Devil's Rope Museum in Texas. We have the largest barbed wire and fencing tool museum in the world. Thanks for posting. www.barbwiremuseum.com