
- 254 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
With this study the cattle guard joins the sod house, the windmill, and barbed wire as a symbol of range country on the American Great Plains. A U.S. folk innovation now in use throughout the world, the cattle guard functions as both a gate and a fence: it keeps livestock from crossing, but allows automobiles and people to cross freely. The author blends traditional history and folklore to trace the origins of the cattle guard and to describe how, in true folk fashion, the device in its simplest form—wooden poles or logs spaced in parallel fashion over a pit in the roadway—was reinvented and adapted throughout livestock country.
Hoy traces the origins of the cattle guard to flat stone stiles unique to Cornwall, England, then through the railroad cattle guard, in use in this country as early as 1836, and finally to the Great Plains where, probably in 1905, the first ones appeared on roads. He describes regional variations in cattle guards and details unusual types. He provides information on cattle-guard makers, who range from local blacksmiths and welders to farmers and ranchers to large manufacturers.
In addition to documenting the economic and cultural significance of the cattle guard, this volume reveals much about early twentieth-century farm and ranch life. It will be of interest not only to folklorists and historians of agriculture and Western America, but also to many Plains-area farmers, ranchers, and oilmen.
Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Information
Table of contents
- Front Cover
- Half Title
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Preface to Kansas Open Books Edition
- Preface
- 1 The Cattle Guard: An Overview
- 2 The Need for Cattle Guards
- 3 Cattle-Guard Innovators, 1900 to 1920
- 4 The Spread of Cattle Guards, 1920 to 1930
- 5 The Railroad Cattle Guard
- 6 Cornish Stiles, Lich Gates, and Cattle Guards
- 7 Lore about Cattle Guards
- 8 Unusual Cattle Guards
- 9 Makers of Cattle Guards
- 10 The Economics of Cattle Guards
- 11 Cattle Guards around the World
- Appendix
- Sources of Information
- List of Contributors of Information
- Index
- Back Cover