Greenwood County lies almost wholly within the Bluestem pasture region of Kansas, one of the world's great beef cattle feeding grounds. More popularly known as the Flint Hills, this narrow oval region extends across the state from north to south, two counties wide, and covers four and a half million acres. Each summer a million head of cattle are fattened on its nutritious grasses. The Bluestem region is the last large segment of true prairie that once stretched from the forests of the East to the Great Plains. Every spring Southwestern cattle are shipped there for fattening, often in greater numbers in a single year than were driven to all Kansas railheads in an average season during the Texas cattle drives from 1866 to 1885. Greenwood County held a full share of this industry, ranking among the top five Kansas counties in number of cattle grazed, and at times as many as 75,000 head were fed on the county's 739,000 acres.