The Golden Triangle of Meat-packing or Golden Triangle of Beef refers to the importance of meat-packing in three southwestern Kansas counties and their principal cities: Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal. While population decreased in many counties in western Kansas during the 20th century, these three cities and their environs experienced population increases from 1980 to 2020. The increases were primarily due to employment opportunities at four large slaughter houses and meat-packing plants. The large majority of the employees at the meat packing plants are Hispanics, most foreign-born and many presumed to be undocumented. Unlike the rest of the state, Hispanics by 2020 made up a majority of the population of these three counties plus one adjacent county. The industry Until the mid 20th century, the meat-packing industry usually moved live cattle or carcasses by rail from producing areas to meat-packing facilities near large cities such as Chicago and Kansas City. This began to change in the 1960s, as companies began to move slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants to where cattle were raised. Southwestern Kansas was attractive to the meat-packing companies because of an abundance of groundwater obtainable from the Ogallala Aquifer. The abundance of water permitted irrigation to be used for growing large quantities of animal feed. Precipitation in this "dust bowl" region is sometimes inadequate for agriculture. The increased production of animal feed permitted the establishment of large feedlots in which cattle could be collected and fattened before being sent to slaughterhouses. Finally, the slaughterhouses themselves needed large quantities of water, estimated at of water for each butchered cow. (The Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted, with one estimate that it will be dry in the Golden Triangle region about 2040. In 1980, Iowa Beef Packers (known as IBP) opened what was then the world's largest beef packing plant in Holcomb, Kansas, west of Garden City. The plant employs 3,600 people and slaughters 6,000 cattle every day. The facility is now owned by Tyson Foods. Finney County induced the company to locate the plant near Garden City by providing the company with $100 million in industrial revenue bonds and $3.5 million in property tax relief. In 1983, a small meat packing plant in Garden City, later owned by ConAgra, began expanding and eventually employed 2,300 people. The plant burned down in 2000 and has never reopened. The two largest employers in Ford County (Dodge City) are National Beef with 2,950