Historian J. Evetts Haley noted that the XIT Ranch was probably the largest fenced range in the world, and its barbed wire enclosed more than 3 million acres. The huge enclosure helped manage enormous cattle herds and deterred rustlers but also gave rise to the creative use of a new technology: the telephone. Consider these reports from other parts of the West. In 1897, The Electrical Review reported that “on a ranch in California, telephone communication had been established between the various camps … by means of barbed wire fences.” Also in 1897, the New England Journal of Agriculture observed...