If you look at the table of contents for my book, Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook, you’ll see that entries on networks before/outside the internet are arranged first by underlying infrastructure and then chronologically. You’ll also notice that within the section on wired networks, there are two sub-sections: one for electrical wire and another for barbed wire. Even though the barbed wire section is quite short, it was one of the most fascinating to research and write about – mostly because the history of using barbed wire to communicate is surprisingly long and almost entirely undocumented, even though barbed wire fence phones in particular were an essential part of early- to mid-twentieth century rural life in many parts of the U.S. and Canada!

While I was researching barbed wire fence phones and wondering whether any artists had been intrepid enough to experiment with this other network, I came across Phil Peters and David Rueter‘s work “Barbed Wire Fence Telephone” which they installed in a Chicago gallery in 2015. libi striegl (Managing Director of the Media Archaeology Lab through which we run many of our Other Networks projects) and I decided we should see if we can get Peters and Rueter to re-install their barbed wire fence telephone on the CU Boulder campus…to our delight and surprise, they said yes. But even more delightful and surprising was the fact that the college I’m now based in, the College of Media, Communication, and Information (CMCI), was enthusiastically supportive of our ask to install this fence phone network in a university classroom! In fact, not only was CMCI supportive in principle, they helped fund the project and staff members even helped us drill holes, put up fence posts, and string barbed wire. Phil and libi (with modest assistance from me) wrapped up the installation of “Barbed Wire Fence Telephone II” on Thursday August 29th and on Friday August 30th Phil gave a group of about 20 people a hands-on demo of this ad hoc network.

Since so little documentation exists online about the history of this important communication network, below I include the introduction I wrote for the section on barbed wire along with the entry on barbed wire fence phones. I admit I hope someone adds this information to Wikipedia and cites either this post or Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook (forthcoming in 2025 by Anthology Editions).

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Barbed Wire Networks

Barbed wire was originally proposed as an inexpensive and potentially painful material that could be used to create a fence and thus act as a deterrent to keep livestock within a confined area and/or to keep out intruders. Alan Krell documents numerous designs for wire that featured barbs throughout the 19th century, including one proposed by French inventor Léonce Eugène Grassin-Baledans in 1860 for a “Grating of wire-work for fences and other purposes.” The first patent in the U.S. for a wire fence featuring barbs was given to Lucien B. Smith from Kent, Ohio (U.S.) in 1867. Illinois farmer Joseph Glidden submitted a patent for an improved version of barbed wire in 1874 which has since become the dominant design. As Reviel Netz puts it, after this point the physical control of wide open spaces was largely complete. Many farmers objected to the cruelty built into barbed wire, the way in which the fencing meant cattle drives were no longer possible, and the way it marked the end of seemingly free and open public land; notably they formed anti-barbed-wire associations and pleaded with legislators and government officials to enact laws limiting or regulating the use of the wire. Nonetheless, as the price of wire fell from twenty cents per pound in 1874 to two cents a pound by 1893, few ranchers could afford any other type of fencing material. By the 1890s, the barbed wire industry had become wealthy enough and powerful enough that they effectively quelled all opposition to the wire. The availability of inexpensive barbed wire, especially across the western U.S. in the late 19th century, largely made it possible to keep larger herds of livestock than had been possible up to that point. It also played a significant role in “settling” the American west by violently asserting individual ownership over land that was already occupied by Native Americans.

Appropriately nicknamed ‘the devil’s rope,’ barbed wire is made from steel (later coated in zinc, a zinc-aluminum alloy, or a kind of polymer coating such as polyvinyl chloride) and single or double barbs placed roughly four to six inches apart. To erect a fence, one only needs barbed wire, posts, and materials to afix the wire to the posts. Finally, although this section focuses on its use as a cooperative, non-commercial form of telecommunications network, it is also worth noting the frequent use barbed wire for trench warfare or as a security measure atop walls or buildings.

Sources: Alan Krell, The Devil’s Rope: A Cultural History of Barbed Wire (Reaktion Books, 2002); Léonce Eugène Grassin-Baledans, “Grating of wire-work for fences and other purposes,” France Patent 45827; Lucien B. Smith, “Wire Fence,” US Patent 66182A (25 June 1867); Joseph Glidden, “Improvement in Wire Fences,” US Patent 157124A (27 OCtober 1873); Reviel Netz, Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity (Wesleyan University Press, 2009)

53. Fence Phones

Country of Origin: U.S.A.

Creator(s): unknown

Earliest Known Use: roughly 1893

Basic Materials: copper wire, barbed wire, posts, fasteners (such as nails or staples), insulators (such as porcelain knobs, glass bottles, leather, corn cobs, cow horns), battery-powered telephone handsets

Description: A fence phone, also referred to as a barbed wire fence phone or squirrel lines, is the use of “smooth” (presumably copper) wire running from a house to nearby barbed wire fencing to create an informal, ad hoc, cooperative, non-commercial, local telephone network. Two key developments in the 1890s led to its adoption primarily by farmers, ranchers, and those living in rural or isolated areas especially in the U.S. and Canada: the widespread availability and inexpensiveness of barbed wire in the 1890s; and the erosion of Alexander Graham Bell’s patent monopoly in 1893 and 1894 which, according to Robert MacDougall, led to the sudden explosion of 80 to 90 independent telephone companies manufacturing telephone sets that could be used outside of the burgeoning Bell telephone system. According to Ronald Kline, the sudden explosion of independent telphone companies in turn set into motion the independent telephone movement. Not only had Bell largely neglected to provide those in rural areas with telephone service in favor of focusing on those in urban areas, but early Bell telephone owners were also intent on controlling telephone usage. Writes MacDougall, “Bell’s early managers sought to limit frivolous telephoning, especially undignified activities like courting or gossiping over the telephone, and to control certain groups of users, like women, children, and servants, who were thought to be particular offenders.” By contrast, according to Kline, the independent telephone companies recognized it would be too expensive to build lines in rural areas and they instead openly “advised farm people to buy their own telephone equipment, build their own lines, and create cooperatives to bring phones to the countryside.”

In need of a practical way to overcome social isolation; communicate emergencies, weather, and crop prices; and chafing under attempts to curtail free speech, ranchers and farmers began to take advantage of the growing ubiquity of both telephone sets and barbed wire fencing. They would hook up telephones to wire strung from their homes to a nearby fence; at the time, telephones had their own battery which produced a DC current that could carry a voice signal; turning a crank on the phone would generate an AC current to produce a ring at the end of the line. Bob Holmes elaborates on the process: “the barbed wire networks had no central exchange, no operators–and no monthly bill. Instead of ringing through the exchange to a single address, every call made every phone on the system ring. Soon each household had its own personal ringtone…but anyone could pick up…Talk was free, and so people soon began to ‘hang out’ on the phone.” The fence phone lines could also be used to broadcast urgent information to everyone on the line. Reportedly, the quality of the signal traveling over the heavy wire was excellent, but weather would frequently cause short circuits which locals attempted to fix with anything that could serve as an insulator (such as leather straps, corn cobs, cow horns, or glass bottles).

There are newspaper reports of ranchers and farmers using fence phones in U.S. states such as California, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Montana, South Dakota and also parts of Canada. For example, a 1902 issue of the Chicago-based magazine Telephony reported on a barbed wire fence telephone network that operated between Broomfield and Golden, Colorado (U.S.A.) over a distance of 25 miles and which cost roughly $10 to build. The line was used for a “woman operator” to notify a worker at the end of the line “when to send down a head of water and how much.” The author notes one “peculiar feature of this system is that only the operator can begin the talk. When it is decided to send down water the operator calls up the man at the headgate and gives him specific instructions, which he must follow. If he has anything to say he must say it then or hold his peace till he is called up again, for it is not a circuit system and only the Broomfield office can call up. This gives the lady the advantage of being able to shut off the other fellow at will and of getting in the last word.” The fence phone systems also seemed to thrive in areas known for having cooperatives, especially related to farming. The model of a cooperative network particularly thrived throughout the 1920s as farmers experienced economic depression some years before the Great Depression. For example, according to David Sicilia, farmers in Montana created the Montana East Line Telephone Association to which they each contributed $25 plus several dollars a year for maintenance along with telephone sets, batteries, wire, and insulators.

Anecdotally, fence phones were still being used throughout the 1970s and perhaps even later. C.F. Eckhardt describes calling his parents who lived in rural Texas and still used a fence phone; their number was simply 37, designated on the small local network by three long rings and one short ring.

Sources: Alan Krell, The Devil’s Rope: A Cultural History of Barbed Wire (Reaktion Books, 2002); David B. Sicilia, “How the West Was Wired,” Inc.com (15 June 1997); Early W. Hayter, Free Range and Fencing, Vol. 3 (Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia Department of English, 1960); Robert MacDougall, The People’s Network: The Political Economy of the Telephone in the Gilded Age (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014); Ronald Kline, Consumers in the Country: Technology and Social Change in Rural America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); “A CHEAP TELEPHONE SYSTEM FOR FARMERS,” Scientific American, 82:13 (31 March 1900); “Bloomfield’s Barbed Wire System,” Telephony: An Illustrated Monthly Telephone Journal 4:6 (December 1902); Bob Holmes, “Wired Wild West: Cowpokes chatted on fence-wire phones,” New Scientist (17 December 2013); C. F. Eckhardt, “Before Maw Bell: Rural Telephone Systems in the West,” Texasescapes.com (2008); Phil Peters, “Barbed Wire Fence Telephone,” https://philipbpeters.com/ (2014)