The Portland Cattle Loan Co. was founded in 1911 by Louis Swift, Edward Tilden, and other packing world financiers in the Pacific Northwest who operated the Union Stock Yards on the Columbia River in North Portland. They brought in Walter Dickey to set up the loan company in order to act as a broker between investors and cattle growers quickly lending over $20 million within the first three years of operation. These cows, young stock, and summer loans, as well as feeder loans often made in the last stage of feeding prior to the sale of mature beef. Often the interest rates were 8 to 9 percent and ranchers could borrow as much as 100 percent of the potential sales price, but the livestock and the rancher had to be of good quality, include adequate water supplies, shelter, and sufficient feed to fatten cattle and sheep, with monitoring by Portland Cattle Loan Co. Agents.