Question: Where in Texas did industrialist John Warne Gates stage a demonstration to promote sales of barbed wire?
Answer: San Antonio. Gates, known as “Bet-a-Million” for his affinity for gambling, was assigned to Texas as a a salesman for the Washburn-Moen Company in 1876. When ranchers were reluctant to buy his product, he set up a barbed wire corral in San Antonio’s Military Plaza, where he provoked longhorn cattle to charge at the fence, which didn’t break. He was soon inundated with orders, and he started his own barbed wire manufacturing company, which was eventually purchased by J.P. Morgan’s U.S. Steel. Gates was also influential in the development of Port Arthur as the president of the Texas Company, later known as Texaco.
