By 1869, the plains Indian tribes had been forcibly removed from their native lands, and the absence of conflict opened the way for a land rush by white settlers and town builders. The United States government purposely facilitated new settlement in the West by the Land Grant Act in 1850, which granted sections of public land on either side of rail lines to the railroads that could then be sold, and also by the Homestead Act of 1862 that gave free land to applicants who could “prove” their claim. The Civil War had delayed the building of railroads, but between 1870 and 1880, Colorado Eastern Slope railroad construction was in high gear.