fences

  • Barbed Wire Fences Were An Early DIY Telephone Network

    Barbed Wire Fences Were An Early DIY Telephone Network

    Before Ma Bell came to town, and long before DSL, it was barbed wire, of all things, that brought rural communities together. A Sears telephone hooked up to barbed wire — miles of which were already conveniently strung along fences — connected far-flung ranches in the recently settled American west. Thus an ingenious and unregulated…