Glidden began work on ways to make a useful barbed wire to fence cattle in 1873. He made his best design of barbed wire by using a
coffee mill to create the barbs. Glidden placed the barbs along a wire and then twisted another wire around it to keep the barbs in place, in a design that he called "The Winner", being his best design. He received the patent for that barbed wire design on November 24, 1874, when he was 61 years old. He and local hardware dealer
Isaac L. Ellwood began manufacturing and selling the barbed wire with his patent, as the Barb Fence Company in
DeKalb, Illinois. In 1876, Glidden exited the manufacturing aspect, though retaining royalties, by selling his half of the manufacturing business to
Washburn and Moen, who had a wire manufacturing plant in Worcester, Massachusetts and from whom Glidden and Ellwood had been purchasing steel wire. Ellwood stayed in DeKalb and renamed the company I. L. Ellwood & Company of DeKalb. That company evolved into American Steel and Wire, and eventually was bought by
U. S. Steel Manufacturing Company. Glidden was embroiled in a legal battle initiated by fellow DeKalb resident
Jacob Haish over whether the design for holding the barbs in place with an extra strand of wire was novel, an improved design. An earlier patent for barbed wire had been issued to a man in Ohio, among other patents related to barbed wire. Glidden eventually won at the US Supreme Court in an 1892 case, his patent protection expired the same year. The legal fees were estimated to have cost Glidden $100,000. Henry B. Sanborn, a sales representative for Glidden's company, owned a ranch in
Grayson County north of
Dallas and wished to advertise barbed wire there. In 1881, Sanborn purchased ninety-five sections of land in southwestern Potter County from near the Canadian River extending into
Randall County south of Amarillo. Included in the purchase was Tecovas Spring, once a watering site and a trading post for Indians and
Comancheros. John Summerfield, a surveyor from
Sherman, Texas, reported a constant flow of freshwater from the spring. Sanborn chose this site for his ranch headquarters and enclosed 120 miles of land in barbed wire for $39,000 ($ in dollars).
Warren W. Wetzel, also of Sherman, used
cedar posts brought from both the Palo Duro Canyon and the breaks of the Sierrita de la Cruz in the northwestern portion of the ranch to hold up the wire. Besides ranchers, railroads were large purchasers of barbed wire, so that cattle did not stray onto their tracks. The Frying Pan Ranch soon had 15,000 head of cattle, and 125,000 more acres were added. Later the ranch was divided. In 1898, Glidden deeded Frying Pan Ranch to his son-in-law William Henry Bush. Between 1908 and 1920, William Henry Bush and his second wife Ruth Bush built a larger ranch house near Tecovas Spring, which later became the residence of
Stanley Marsh 3 and his wife, Wendy. Gwendolyn "Wendy" Bush O'Brien was the daughter of Emeline Bush and her husband Frank O'Brien; Emeline was a daughter of William Henry and Ruth Bush. Stanley Marsh called the estate "Toad Hall". ==Land for the Northern Illinois State Normal School ==