encouraging people to GO WestThe Homestead Act, 1862This allowed homesteaders to claim 160 acres of land free if they lived and worked on it for five years. The prospect of free land was very attractive to people who could never have afforded a farm back home.RailroadsIn order to encourage the railroad companies to build the transcontinental railways, the government gave them a two-mile stretch of land either side of the railroad - part of the companies' profit came from selling this land. Therefore they launched a massive sales campaign, offering a 'settlement package', which included:a safe, cheap and speedy journey westtemporary accommodation in 'hotels' until the families had built their own homeother attractions such as schools, churches and no taxes for five years.Manifest destinyThe idea grew up that white Americans were superior, and that it was America's manifest destiny (obvious FATE) to EXPAND and encourage 'the American way of LIFE' on the Great Plains. The writer Horace Greeley, who popularised this idea, ADVISED Americans: 'Go West, young man'.Tall talesOnce the population of an area reached 60,000, it could apply to become a state of the USA. Local governments therefore encouraged publicity campaigns which claimed (for example) that farmers in the west could grow pumpkins as big as barns and maize as tall as telegraph poles. Many people moved west thinking they would make a fortune.