Listen to an episode of American Countryside with Andrew McCrea: In 1874, Joseph Glidden, a banker, businessman and a farmer, designed and patented a type of wire fencing known as barbed wire.

Brad Penka can't say enough about barbed wire's winning of the West. Eli Reichman “Barbed wire was a lifesaver for this region,” says Brad Penka, president and curator of the Kansas Barbed ...