Railroad promoters’ claims about the charms of western farming were especially exaggerated in regard to the Dakotas. In the railroad boom of the late 1870s, as new western railroads cut into the Dakota Territory formed from Sioux land, Dakota railroads had to work to entice settlers away from other rail lines. Railroads offered financial aid for settlers’ travel west, built “reception houses” in big towns to shelter arriving emigrants, sold land at two to ten dollars an acre, and gave rebates to those breaking land.
