Consider the technological advances of the former 1900s . The geological era introduced refrigerators , radios and the first electric washables machines , just to name a few . It also usher in one of the most widespread — and simplest — technologies to change communicating : the barbed wire .
Whilebarbed wiremay seem like an unbelievable " tech , " at the clock time it was an ingenious way for James Leonard Farmer and rancher to encircle their territory . But that ’s not all ! Barbed conducting wire also let people communicate with each other from detached houses and far - flung pasture corners — all it expect was hooking a store - bought telephone to wire fencing .
There were already Roman mile of barbed telegram fences string up as property personal line of credit and pasture dividers throughout the expanse of the United States , from the Great Plains to the Midwest and Southwest . Turning them into telephone lines turned out to be a comparatively square process .
Typically , a smooth conducting wire was strung from a telephone in a theatre or barn to a briary wire fence . From there , it solicit into the top filament of barbed telegram ( most fencing had at least three filament ) and the telephone sign would fall out the distance of the conducting wire to a second telephone that was connected to the barbed telegram down the line . Sometimes as many as20 or more telephonesat various rural home were connected onto a exclusive barbed - wire arrangement .
The arrangement , while workable , was imperfect . Barbed wire fences did n’t run seamlessly throughout the countryside , so overhead or buried conducting wire were used to bridge communication over roads , ditches and other gap in fencing . And there were frequent outage brought on by cattle break through fencing , or by rain that grounded the signal . And insulator , which ranged from porcelain knobs to rugged bottle , were used to keep the barbed wire from touching the fence posts , but those were n’t always effective .
For the most part , however , this low - cost telephone arrangement keep citizenry connected . Most of these phone systems were a “ party lineage , ” which meant that all the phone connected to the samephone networkall rang at the same time . To combat mix-up , people developed specific rings . To reach one crime syndicate , a caller might give a combination of one long and one short anchor ring . To call another family , the signal might be two short annulus . In general , a long and uninterrupted ring point an emergency , such as a fire or injury , causing everyone to pick up to hear the substance .
The power of everyone to listen in , at any prison term , was another lineament ( or hazard ) of the “ party line . ” There was no guarantee , and little expectation , of have individual conversation . In fact , some the great unwashed would read the newspaper orplay music over the party lineso everyone could communally listen in . now and again , these rural telephone system would evolve into a organization with a centralparty - argumentation operatorwho ran a limited - hour switchboard from one of the connected dwelling .
At one time , farm and ranch menage were the mostwell - networkedin the nation . In 1912 , for example , more rural farm homes had telephones than did urban homes . Although those numbers began to light significantly after World War II , there are reports thatseveral domicile in Texascontinued to utilise bristled wire telephones well into the 1970s .
