NARRATOR: In the decades after the Civil War, thousands of farmers moved West into the Great Plains, taking advantage of the cheap land provided by the Homestead Act. The act was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 to encourage Western migration.

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Under the act, settlers could receive title to 160 acres of Western land if they were at least 21 years old, if they built a house at least 12 by 14 feet in size, and if they worked their land for five years.

MARIA MONTOYA: The way the Homestead Act worked, you would go out to the land office in whatever region that you were planning to settle in. And you would pick your plot of land and you would build your house and you would begin to do the things that you needed to do to meet the criteria set up by the federal government.

NARRATOR: By 1900, claims for over 80 million acres had been filed, creating more than 372,000 farms.

- There were many people who benefited incredibly who would never have had the access to land if it hadn't been for the Homestead Act.

NARRATOR: But besides simply owning land, Western farmers had to survive the harsh conditions on the Great Plains in order to succeed. Many soon saw their dreams dashed. Decades of drought ravaged small farms. Prices for crops fell as mechanized corporate farms arose.

Railroads imposed steep rates to transport their goods or refused to serve rural areas altogether. When small farmers complained, railroad baron William Vanderbilt uttered his famous line, "The public be damned." Many farmers took on backbreaking debt in order to keep their farms. Eventually, they banded together, forming cooperatives that gave them the economic and political strength to survive.

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