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Photographer: Michael Kindig
Taken: November 9, 2010
Caption: Barbed Wire Display
Additional Description: To many people, barbed wire symbolizes the end of the open range and the change in the structure of the "Old West". in 1873, the passage of the California "Fence Law" marked the end of the long battle between ranchers and farmers. This law required that all ranches be fenced to give farmers' crop protection from the cattle. For the ranchers, it was a costly law. It took Don Juan Forster many months of labor to fence the Rancho Santa Margarita in addition to the $40,000 needed for the wire and nails.

Although the ranchers didn't like the law, it marked the beginning of modernization. Selective breeding was introduced, round-ups took less time and less people, and grazing could be controlled efficiently. Looked on as a "mixed blessing" in it's beginning, barbed wire truly revolutionized the "Old West".
Submitted: January 8, 2012, by Michael Kindig of Elk Grove, California.
Database Locator Identification Number: p188537
File Size: 3.604 Megabytes

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