Closing the open range

Sept. 23, Hays-La Crosse, 30 miles, NW wind, 60/40—There are two kinds of people in the world: those who like barbed wire museums, and those who don't yet know they like them. La Crosse, I think it's safe to say, has the best barbed wire museum in the world, good enough to impress you even if you walked in thinking nothing could be more boring. It's run by serious collectors in the Kansas Barbed Wire Collectors Association, who put their heads together to develop a museum.

It's tempting to put the barbed wire museum in the category of Great Plains curiosities like Carhenge, the world's largest hand-dug well, and the world's largest ball of twine. I wouldn't mind seeing those (though I guess I could skip the twine, maybe also the well), but barbed wire really did change the West. Finally homesteaders could cheaply fence their gardens, cropfields, and pastures, and make investments on their own range without having to share their improvements. Long-distance cattle drives across the vast open range became obsolete.

I'd reached La Crosse at day's end and found the museum on my town scouting trip. Naturally it was closed at 6:30 on a Saturday evening. In fact, as of a week ago it had closed for the season. On the door two names were posted to contact for appointments. I called Mary, hoping possibly to see the museum the next morning but not expecting even that. Mary said she'd be there in 10 minutes to open up. It took her only five, and she refused payment for souvenirs.