Every junior high student in Texas takes, or used to take, a class in Texas history. My teacher 45 years ago was the no-nonsense Mrs. Carrico, whose first name I do not remember. She told some Texas history stories that I do remember, including one I thought of not long ago when we visited the Ellwood House Museum in DeKalb, Illinois.
The story was about the popularization of barbed wire in Texas, specifically a demonstration of wire in 1876 in San Antonio organized by salesmen from up north. As the Texas State Historical Association puts it:
“In 1876 salesman Pete McManus with his partner John Warne (Bet-a-Million) Gates conducted a famous demonstration on Alamo Plaza [other sources say Military Plaza, including the TSHA] in San Antonio in which a fence of… wire restrained a herd of longhorn cattle. Gates reportedly touted the product as ‘light as air, stronger than whiskey, and cheap as dirt.’ Sales grew quickly thereafter, and barbed wire permanently changed land uses and land values in Texas.”
I’d heard of steel and oil magnate John Bet-a-Million Gates before, but until I visited the Ellwood I hadn’t connected him with this incident. It was early in his career and before he was renowned as a gambler.
At the time, Gates was working for Isaac Ellwood, barbed wire manufacturer of DeKalb. Later Ellwood owned a major ranch in Texas, and built a “Pompeiian Villa” in Port Arthur, but it’s his Illinois manse that concerns me here.
It’s a handsome Victorian house, originally dating from 1879, and designed by a Chicago architect named George O. Garnsey, with later modifications by others.
The museum web site says: “The museum campus consists of seven historic structures (including the 1879 Ellwood Mansion and 1899 Ellwood-Nehring House), four gardens, and 6,000 square feet of exhibit space in the Patience Ellwood Towle Visitor Center, a converted and expanded 1912 multi-car garage.
“Originally built for barbed wire entrepreneur Isaac Ellwood, the Mansion was home to three generations of the Ellwood family from 1879 to 1965. In 1965, the Ellwood Mansion was given to the DeKalb Park District by Mrs. May Ellwood and her three children.”
No pics allowed inside, but be assured that it’s lavishly decorated and includes a lot of the furniture that the Ellwoods owned. No barbed wire, though: that’s on exhibit at the visitors center.