The feedlot, developed post World War II in the United States due to the rise of fast food operations,

enables the cattle to gain weight faster through grain feeding and protein supplements, in order that the
cattle may reach mature slaughter weight at a much faster rate than traditional grazing methods, while
taking up less area than required in traditional grazing methods

Beef was the king of the meat trade in the 50s and 60s. Despite the rumbling about health and
diet, Americans still considered a thick, marbled steak for dinner to be as good as it gets. To
keep up with the demand, cattlemen consolidated their production. It was during this period
that feedlots began operations with tens of thousands of animals, and in the process sowed the
seeds for major changes in meat packing.
Others followed into the feedlot business. Between 1940 and 1969, the number of cattle on
farms nearly doubled, from 60,818 to over 106,000 head. But the number of farms producing
cattle dropped by around three-quarters, from 4.85 million farms with cattle in 1940 to 1.7
million farms in 1969.
The first large feedlot on the Great Plains a region that traditionally led the nation in cattle
production was the Lewter Feed Yard near Lubbock, Texas. Fred Lewter had been a county
agent before he started the feedlot in 1955 with the help of Dallas investor. (Early feedlot
operators often found it difficult to convince a bank that this new type of operation could make
money.)
In 1935, the USDA reported that only 5.1 percent of the nation's 42.8 million beef cattle were
being fattened in feedlots. By 1963, 66 percent of the steers and heifers slaughtered in the U.S.
were being fed grain, and about 40 percent of those were from the highly automated beef
factories in the West.
Meanwhile, producers at the beginning of the beef cycle ranchers were moving away from
consolidation. Some of the largest, historic ranches were split up in the 50s. Originally, these
huge ranches in the West would breed the cattle, raise the calves and even finish them on vast
expanses of grassland. But as the nation's tastes demanded grain fed beef, more and more
ranchers were relegated to the breeding alone. Most ranchers ended up selling yearling calves
to other feeders. Other ranchers sold out.
Of the 70,000 ranches in 1945, about 10,000 went out of business by 1980. That's a higher rate
of survival than the nation's mixed farming operations where 58 percent of the farms sold out
during that period but some of the largest and best-known ranches were among the
casualties. For example, the Matador Land and Cattle Company had been set up in 1882 and
ran 50,000 head of purebred Hereford cattle on 1.5 million acres mostly in Texas. In 1951, the
company was liquidated, the land divided up and the assets sold. Other large ranches, like the
fabled King Ranch in Texas, survived largely because of their oil revenues.

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/crops_08.html

he beef business this day is extremely reliant on technics, however this has not
on every relevant occasion been genuine. In the first 20th era, affluent
transactions were apart as of altogether different associated transactions and
feedlots were non-existent.Clark, Georgia and Jaime Malaga. 2005. West Texas

Feedlots: Reality and Perspectives. Texas Tech University. They emerged in the
1950s and 1960s as a effect of cross seeds and irrigation techniques; the
resulting greater granule harvests guided to plentiful granule harvests.
However, the foremost recognized feedlot was developed and assembled by
Gustavus Swift in 1876 on the south aspect of Chicago. Philip D. Hubbs, M.A.,
The Origins and Consequences of the American Feedlot, Baylor University,
History Department. August 2010. It was abruptly feasible to feed great
numerals of livestock in one place and thus, to cut conveyancing outlays,
granule ranch and feedlot places amalgamated. Cattle were no more
dispatched as of altogether athwart the southern states to emplaces like
California, wherever great carnage lodges were found. In the 1980s, flesh
Packers pursued the way of feedlots and are at the moment found near by
them like well.