Barbed Wire Manufacturing

This house, built in 1861, was the home of Joseph Glidden, who in 1873 invented barbed wire fencing. With Phineas W. Vaughn he perfected a machine to manufacture it. DeKalb was the home of Isaac L. Ellwood and Jacob Haish, also manufacturers of barbed wire. Haish developed the S-barb. DeKalb became the manufacturing center for barbed wire, significant in the development of the west.

DeKalb, Illinois · United States