Before barbed-wire, Erath fences were made of post oak rails, stone-walls, and bois d’arc hedges. They were used not to enclose livestock but to keep them away from crops. In 1874 J.F. Glidden of Illinois patented a mass-produced barbed-wire and moved to Texas where he gave away several rolls free as advertisement. Sales took off by 1883 and soon there were wire fences all over the county. With the new wire fences, cattle were pinned rather than being moved seasonally to maintain a healthy prairie. It wasn’t long before the native grasses were grazed out and replaced with low nutrition invasives. Without a thick grass cover, rainfall eroded deep gullys and lowered the water table. Sparse grass meant fewer grassfires and cedar was then able to move down from the hills and choke the prairies.This was about the time that prairie chickens became extinct in the area. “The barbed-wire changed the entire system of western agriculture, and the open ranges disappeared.”

John Spratt, The Road to Spindletop: Economic Change in Texas, 1873-1901. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1955.