Cash poor during the Civil War, the government made land grants to the railroads to insure the construction of a transcontinental railroad, which they then sold at a profit. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act and created opportunity for the 372,000 families that poured onto the prairies. The families came for many reasons – a hunger for land, a vision for the future, a longing for adventure, or an interest in profit.