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Kansas City Today

When Tyson came to town

By Nomin Ujiyediin,
Byron J. Love
Published November 15, 2021 at 4:00 AM CST
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Forty years ago, a Kansas city and a Colorado city fought it out over the world's largest meatpacking plant — transforming one into a beef industry epicenter, and the other a boomtown-that-could-have-been. It hasn't been an easy path for either city.

It's a tale of two cities: Four decades ago, one town in Kansas and one in Colorado competed for the world’s largest meatpacking plant.

For the winner of the Tyson Foods factory, it meant becoming the epicenter of the region’s beef industry. For the other, it meant a continued economic slide all too familiar to rural America. As David Condos of the Kansas News Service reports, that fateful outcome has forever altered the trajectories of both towns.

Contact the show at news@kcur.org. Follow KCUR onTwitter andFacebook for the latest news.

Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Byron Love and edited by Gabe Rosenberg & Lisa Rodriguez

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Kansas City Today Kansas News Servicemeatpackingcattlebeef industryRural Economy
Nomin Ujiyediin
As a newscaster and a host of a daily news podcast, I want to deliver the most important and interesting news of the day in an engaging and easily understandable way. No matter where you live in the metro or what you’re interested in, I want you to learn something from each newscast or podcast – and maybe even give you something to talk about at the dinner table.
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Byron J. Love
As an on-demand producer, I am focused on using my skills and experiences across multiple digital applications, platforms and media fields to create community focused audio, video and on-demand products for KCUR Studios. The media that I produce aims to inform, entertain and connect with the Kansas City metro area as we continue to learn from each other. Email me at byronlove@kcur.org.
See stories by Byron J. Love
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