A Small Invention That Ended the Times of Cowboys
Everyone can imagine what a cowboy looks like. Over 100 years of western movies have made their image popular and easily recognizable. But do you know how long the Wild West era actually lasted? If you answered “over a hundred years” – you’re wrong. It only thrived for 30 years and came to an end because of one invention that’s still used today! Since cowboys lived by the Rule of Open Range, farmers needed to distinguish their territories somehow and prevent their crops from being trampled by cattle moving freely. They could have built fences out of wood, but that wasn’t a common resource in the prairies, and it would have been expensive and taken too much time. So what did they do?
