Joseph Glidden could have invented almost anything. With one patent under his belt, his direction wasn’t necessarily fixed. So how did Joseph Glidden’s invention of barbed wire come about?   He made a conscious decision to focus on barbed wire. A couple of factors led to this route: his wife’s insistence, the inspiration of a […]

Read more "Mr. Glidden’s Third Patent"

In the fall of 1873, the recently built brick barn on the Glidden property (then about a mile outside of the city) became the first factory for producing barbed wire anywhere in the world. By 1875, partners Joseph Glidden and Isaac Ellwood built a factory on 2nd Street, facing the railroad tracks just south. But […]

Read more "The Least-Known Barbed Wire Factory"

The Glidden brick barn is the site of many different kinds of work and an array of usage over time. Examining Uses When Joseph Glidden built the barn around 1870, he hadn’t yet invented barbed wire. But he was a well-established and prominent planter living on a farm almost a mile outside of town. The design […]

Read more "A Percheron Machine"