Homesteaders were people who on to the Great Plains to . The end of the American Civil War in 1865 left of young ex-soldiers and their families eager to make a new start. and defeated Southerners also wanted to start a new life. Farmers in the East saw land prices rise as more and more settlers in the USA. Jobs in industry were irregular and there was unemployment. Europeans wanted to escape the and old-fashioned class control life in Europe and the USA offered land than was at home. Jews, Amish and other religious groups wanted to live of persecution.

The 1862 Homestead Act gave anyone wanting to in the west 160 acres free, provided they lived on it and it for five years. This was an offer that pulled people from thousands of miles away, Norway, Russia, Poland and all over Europe and the Eastern USA. advertised cheap land far and wide. They built trans-continental railroads across empty plains. To make it worth their , the US government had given the railroad companies land along the . To make any money out of this, the railroad companies needed sell this land. They also wanted people to live along their , using their . Indians had been cleared off the land, by the US Army and put in reservations