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The Great Northern became the most successful transcontinental railroad and one of the few railroads of the time that was not eventually forced into bankruptcy.

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Not all railroad men were robber barons. James Hill was not, he built the Great Northern Railroad from Wisconsin and Minnesota to Washington state without any federal land grants or subsides

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The land was only available if  the railroads could sell it. The building of the railroads themselves offered further encouragement, as settlers no longer had to migrate the entire distance on their own

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Building railroad lines required more money than most private investors could raise on their own. To encourage railroad construction across the Great Plains, the federal government gave land grants to many companies.

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The transcontinental railroad was the first of many lines that began crisscrossing the nation after the Civil War. By linking the nation, railroads increased the markets for many products, spurring industrial growth.  They also stimulated the economy by spending a huge amount of money on steel, coal, timber, and other materials.

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Workers completed the transcontinental railroad in only four years, despite the physical challenges. Each mile of track required 400 rails, and each rail took 10 spikes.

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The railroad boom began in 1862 with the Pacific Railway Act. This act gave two corporations the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific permission to build a transcontinental railroad.

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In 1865 the United States had about 35,000 miles of railroad track, almost all of it east of the Mississippi River. After the Civil War, railroad construction expanded dramatically. By 1900, the United States had more than 200,000 miles of track.