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.

There are more than 2,400 variations of barbed wire. The first U.S. patent for a barbed fence attachment was issued in 1867. But it was not until 1874 that Joseph Farwell Glidden, a De Kalb ...