Meat processing and Garden City, KS: Boom and bust

In December 1980, the worldʹs largest beef processing plant opened 10 miles west of Garden City, KS. Three years later another beef plant opened on Garden Cityʹs eastern edge. Full employment in the surrounding region meant that most of the 4000 workers needed to run these plants had to come from elsewhere—and they did. Garden City grew by one-third from 1980 to 1985, and it became a modern boomtown. Garden City suffered many of the social problems associated with the energy boomtowns of the Rocky Mountain West described by earlier researchers. But unlike the jobs created in those earlier boomtowns, meatpacking paid poorly and provided few benefits. On Christmas night in 2000, a fire destroyed one of the beef plants, putting 2300 people out of work. Four years after the fire, the plant remains closed and the townʹs economy is in decline. This paper describes the social and economic consequences for a boomtown when a major engine of its economy goes bust.