Postcard History

Hey everyone, it’s time to tell you about the most stubborn bull in Texas. His name was Bubba, and he was so ornery his own mother disowned him. It was 1933 and he lived on a ranch just outside of Austin, where the skies were big and blue, and the land was as dry as the devil’s hide.

It was no secret that Bubba had a particular dislike for barbed wire. He had been tangled in it more times than a hound dog chasing its tail, and it seemed like every time he tried to break free, he would only make things worse. The ranchers would try to fix his bruises and cuts, but Bubba would just give them the stink-eye and run for the horizon.

One day, a young ranch hand named Jimmy decided he had enough of Bubba’s antics. He actually thought that if he could get that bull through a narrow gate made of barbed wire, he’d be able to keep him penned up, once and for all, and good and proper.

Jimmy spent hours trying to coax Bubba through the gate, even with hands-full of the sweetest prairie grass as a reward, that bull just wouldn’t budge. When Jimmy got him to squeeze through on one side, it would happen that the horns got stuck on the other. Jimmy would laugh and curse and pull and yank, but Bubba just kept on wiggling and jiggling.

Just when Jimmy was about to give up, he spotted an old cowboy, with a big-wide grin on his face sitting under a mesquite tree. He had been watching the whole scene. Jimmy decided to ask for advice and walked toward the old man. When he got close, the old timer called out, “Hello, lad. What in tarnation are you doing?”

As he reached for his bandanna to wipe the sweat from his face, he replied, “Just trying to get this dadblamed bull through this gate.”

The old timer nodded thoughtfully and said, “Well, I reckon you’re going about it all wrong.”

“How come,” Jimmy asked? What do you mean?”

“You’re thinking like a human,” the old timer said. “You need to think like a bull.”

Jimmy looked at him, totally bewildered, “How do I do that?”

The old timer winked. “Try getting behind Bubba and start pushing as hard as you know how. You need to get him moving from his other end.”

Jimmy did just as he was told, and don’t you know, that old bull Bubba went through that gate like butter through a biscuit press! Jimmy gave a whoop of triumph and patted Bubba on the rump.

The old cowboy joined Jimmy as they led the bull away to green pastures, Jimmy turned to the old timer and asked, “What made you think of that?”

The old timer chuckled and said, “Well, Jimmy, when you’ve been dealing with critters as ornery as bulls like Bubba, sometimes you got to think outside the box – or in this case, outside the fence.”

***

One sunny afternoon in 1876, John Warne Gates set up a display of a new product he was trying to sell to Texas cattlemen. It was right in the town square of San Antonio, Texas. As a crowd gathered, he called out to all who would listen, “It’s lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, and cheaper than dirt.” He was selling barbed wire.

Gates made his way to Texas from Turner Junction, Illinois to sell fencing to farmers and cattlemen. His new product was indeed made of wire and everyone was skeptical. The intrepid salesman told his audience to wait. Wait until, well, just please wait.

At the appointed hour, as Gates had arranged earlier, a few hired cowboys drove a herd of Texas Longhorns, through the streets of San Antonio, raising dust to the heavens, but the herd followed the cowboys right into the corral. The display that Gates had set up earlier was indeed a 1600 square foot corral of barbed wire.

Everyone knew that the flimsy wire, at the far end of the corral, would not hold back that many angry bulls, but – it did. Everyone of those Longhorns got painfully pricked by the fence that came to be known as the “Devil’s Rope.” The animals learned fast that there was pain in those wires and soon chose to mill-about in the center of the corral instead of making another attempt to break free.

Needless to say, Mr. Gates soon became a wealthy man and with his newly acquired wealth founded the Southern Wire Company in 1880. Later he owned or controlled other wire companies and was a founding partner of the

Southern Railway in Kansas City. When oil was discovered at Spindletop, Texas, in 1901, he created the Texas Company that later became Texaco. His first year in business provided a two-million-dollar income. When he sold the company, there was one “never to be amended,” clause in the sale agreement, “Mr. Gates would receive a penny per foot royalty of all Southern Wire Company’s sales of “non-patented” barbed wire.” That turned out to be, $52.80 per mile of barbed wire manufactured until his death.

Gates died in Paris in August 1911. Thankfully Mrs. Gates was not a destitute widow, even without the “one cent” clause. Dollora Baker Gates inherited a $30,000,000 estate. After her husband’s death she returned to her Manhattan home and lived there until November 1918.