Garden City and Lamar share the same river, the same highway, the same railroad line and the same Dust Bowl past. And through the 1960s, they were roughly the same size. But the population of Finney County — home to Garden City — has doubled since 1970. It’s now over 38,000. The number of people living in Prowers County — home to Lamar — has slowly slipped under 12,000. Larry Jones has watched the transformation of western Kansas’ largest city from his farm and cattle company that sits just outside of town. “If you’d been here 20 years ago and looked at it,” he said, “you wouldn’t recognize the town.” Next door to Jones’ milo field sits the giant, boxy structure that resuscitated Garden City: Tyson Foods’ Finney County beef plant. Inside, more than 3,000 workers — most of them immigrants and refugees — butcher 6,000 head of cattle every day.
Source: KSN-TV
