In the post-Reconstruction era the American people had a drive, more so than ever, to expand westward to what was called the frontier. However, what made this expansion successful, not to mention possible, was the railroads. Although the railroads helped hurt the economy, it is undeniable that without the help of the railroads the Great Plains would have never been settled to the extent they were.
A brief summary of what the railroads did for the settlement of the Great Plains: most importantly and most obviously, they provided a fast safe mode of travel for people to actually get there in order to live. They also provided jobs for people to work on laying the rails and maintaining and driving the cars, albeit these jobs did not pay well, they were still jobs. .
The railroads also made a less visible, but still major, impact. They were granted large sums of land from the Federal Government. They sold much of this land to the banks who in turn loaned it out to farmers. This was a double edged sword in that it gave people land, but also created a vicious cycle of debt with the cash cropping that went on. This nearly single handedly destroyed the economics of the Great Plains. Along with the overproduction of many crops, the farming industry was in a shambles and the railroads only helped the hit or miss nature of this economy. The foreign competition only added to the troubles.
The region was in need of some serious reconcile. And the industry that came to the rescue was the cattle industry. The cattle industry became the answer, and Joseph McCoy the proverbial savior. He discovered how profitable it could be to raise enormous amounts of longhorn cattle in the south, Oklahoma and Texas mainly, and ship them to the East. Since there were no farms in the East and other urban areas, beef was always in great demand. By frequenting long trips on the railroads, a farmer could earn kickbacks, or refunds, from the railroad companies; this helped save the economy in the Great Plains.