In 1843, he moved to Illinois with his wife and children, first to Ogle County and then to DeKalb where they had purchased a farm.

Glidden began work on ways to make a useful barbed wire to fence cattle in 1873.

Glidden eventually won at the US Supreme Court in an 1892 case, his patent protection expired the same year.

The Dun & Bradstreet Collection, 1840–1895, MSS 791, LXIII, 130, Baker Library, Harvard, recorded his assets at one million dollars.

In 1867, he served on the executive committee of DeKalb County Agriculture and Mechanical Society's Seventh Annual Fall Fair, held September 25–28.

The wire was brought in by wagon from the railhead at Dodge City, Kansas, and the timbers were cut from Palo Duro Canyon and along the Canadian River Valley.

[4] Henry B. Sanborn, a sales representative for Glidden's company, owned a ranch in Grayson County north of Dallas and wished to advertise barbed wire there.

Included in the purchase was Tecovas Spring, once a watering site and a trading post for Indians and Comancheros.

John Summerfield, a surveyor from Sherman, Texas, reported a constant flow of freshwater from the spring.

Sanborn chose this site for his ranch headquarters and enclosed 120 miles of land in barbed wire for $39,000 ($1.23 million in 2023 dollars).

Warren W. Wetzel, also of Sherman, used cedar posts brought from both the Palo Duro Canyon and the breaks of the Sierrita de la Cruz in the northwestern portion of the ranch to hold up the wire.

In 1898, Glidden deeded Frying Pan Ranch to his son-in-law William Henry Bush.

[8] Glidden, a former teacher, gave 63 acres (255,000 m2) of his homestead as a site for the Northern Illinois State Normal School.