Some architectural detail from the Ellwood Mansion in Dekalb, Illinois.
Isaac Ellwood was a barbed wire baron in the late 1800s/early 1900s. He made his fortune the old fashioned way -- he took someone else's idea, bought a share of it and proceeded to buy out all his competitors.
Ellwood did improve the process of manufacturing barbed wire and his company successfully sold millions of pounds of the stuff to western ranchers who were initially skeptical that two pieces of wire with a little bitty barb wound in could hold back a Texas longhorn. It did very well, thank you and so did Ellwood and his partners.
I love the styling of the lamps hanging from the porch that wraps around the Ellwood mansion. You'd expect a barbed wire man to have pointy things around his house.
Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.
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