In the late 1870s, John Warne Gates of Illinois began to promote barbed wire, now a proven product, in the lucrative markets of Texas. At first, Texans were hesitant, as they feared that cattle might be harmed, or that the North was somehow trying to make profits from the South. There was also conflict between the farmers who wanted fencing and the ranchers who were losing the open range. Demonstrations by Gates in San Antonio in 1876 showed that the wire could keep cattle contained, and sales then increased dramatically. Gates eventually parted company with Ellwood and became a barbed wire baron in his own right. Throughout the height of barbed wire sales in the late 19th century, Washburn, Ellwood, Gates, and Haish competed with one another, but Ellwood and Gates eventually joined forces again to create the American Steel and Wire Company, later acquired by The U.S. Steel Corporation. Between 1873 and 1899 there were as many as 150 companies manufacturing barbed wire to cash in on the demand in the West: investors were aware that the business did not require much capital and it was considered that almost anyone with enough determination could make a profit from manufacture of a new wire design. There was then a sharp decline in the number of manufacturing firms, as many were consolidated into larger companies, notably the American Steel and Wire Company, formed by the merging of Gates's and Washburn's and Ellwood's industries. Smaller companies were wiped out because of economies of scale and the smaller pool of consumers available to them, compared to the larger corporations. The American Steel and Wire Company established in 1899 employed vertical integration: it controlled all aspects of production from producing the steel rods to making many different wire and nail products from the same steel; although later part of U.S. Steel, the production of barbed wire would still be a major source of revenue  Another inventor, William C. Edenborn, a German immigrant who later settled in Winn Parish, Louisiana, patented a machine which simplified the making of barbed wire and cut the unit price of production from . His particular wire is the "humane" version that did not harm cattle. The original wire was sharp-teethed and contributed to western range wars. Edenborn's company in time supplied 75 percent of the barbed wire in the United States. A wire nail machine that he also patented reduced the price of wire nails from eight to two cents per pound. Barbed wire played an important role in the protection of range rights in the Western U.S.