Railroads played a significant part in settling the Great Plains. As an incentive to build track that would bring settlers onto the plains Congress made extensive grants of land to railroad companies (see, for example, the land granted the Burlington & Missouri River RR in the Railroad Land For Sale map exercise). In turn, the railroads encouraged potential farmers into the region anticipating farm use of rail services to haul crops to market in the east. The document below is a portion of a pamphlet distributed by the Rock Island & Pacific Railway of Chicago promoting interest in farming the Great Plains.