Editing Great Plains (section)

===Railroads===
{{Further|Railroad land grants in the United States#Settlement of the Great Plains}}
After 1870, the new railroads across the Plains brought hunters who killed off almost all the [[American bison|bison]] for their hides. The railroads offered attractive packages of land and transportation to American farmers, who rushed to settle the land. They also took advantage of the homestead laws to obtain farms. Land speculators and local boosters identified many potential towns, and those reached by the railroad had a chance, while the others became ghost towns. Towns flourished if they were favored by proximity to the railroad.<ref>Gilbert Fite. ‘’The Farmers’ Frontier, 1865-1900’’ (1966) pp 34–136.</ref>

The population of Minnesota, Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas experienced significant growth during the 1870s. The total population in these states grew from 1.0 million in 1870 to 2.4 million in 1880, more than doubling in just 10 years. The number of farms in the region tripled, increasing from 99,000 in 1870 to 302,000 in 1880. The improved acreage (land under cultivation) quintupled, rising from 5.0 million acres to 24.6 million acres during the same period. the new settlers mostly purchased land on generous terms from transcontinental railroads that were given land grants by Washington. They focused on wheat and cattle. This rapid population influx and agricultural expansion was a hallmark of the settlement and development of the Great Plains in the late 19th century, as the region attracted waves of new settlers from Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia, as well as farmers who sold land in older states to move to larger farms.<ref>Gilbert C. Fite, "Great Plains farming: A century of change and adjustment". ''Agricultural History'' 51.1 (1977): 244-256.</ref><ref>David J. Wishart, ed. ''Encyclopedia of the Great Plains''. (University of Nebraska Press, 2004) pp. 35–39, 56, 217–25, 807–808.</ref>
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File:Homesteader NE 1866.png|[[Homestead Acts|Homesteaders]] in central [[Nebraska]] in 1866
File:Johnson 1920 HighPlains.jpg|The Great Plains before the native grasses were plowed under, [[Haskell County, Kansas]], 1897, showing a man near a [[buffalo wallow]]
File:Cowboy1902.jpg|Cattle herd and cowboy, c. 1902
File:"Wheat field on Dutch flats near Mitchell, Nebr. Farm of T.C. Shawver." - NARA - 294480.tif|Wheat field on Dutch flats near [[Mitchell, Nebraska]], 1910
</gallery>