John W. "Bet-You-a-Million" Gates proved the value of this invention in 1877 and then earned his fortune producing it:
Web printing press
Modern safety pin
Barbed wire
Vacuum cleaner
Compression ice machine
Barbed wire.
John W. "Bet-You-a-Million? Gates proved the value of barbed wire in 1877 in Texas by stampeding 25 Texas longhorns into a barbed-wire corral. The fence held the cattle unhurt. Cattlemen had doubted that the barbed wire fencing–invented by Joseph Glidden in 1874–could hold the wild longhorns without injuring them. Gates went on to control several wire companies and then formed the American Steel and Wire Company in 1898, which established a virtual monopoly of barbed wire based on the Glidden patent.
