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The Harvey Girls and Great Food Comes to the Rails
The building of a railroad was not merely the act of laying down track for a train to run. It was in fact the building of complete communities. The railroads needed settlers to become customers. They needed people to travel the rails and ship their goods by rail. The railroads had a very potent tool many were granted land grants, a set amount of land along the railroad, which they could sell or give away. The railroads soon began to actively recruit settlers to establish farms and towns along the new routes of the rails.
The railroad that was most aggressive in its settlement efforts was the Illinois Central. It pioneered the sending of agents to Europe to look for settlers. And it succeeded. As its rails spread forth through the state, so did the settlement of the state.| < |
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