In 1850 most of this land was still wilderness with very few settlers. The United States Government and businessmen reasoned that if railroads were extended into the area, settlers would soon follow. The railroads lacked the funds for such a project and the investors were unwilling to accept the risks. To solve the problem, the government made a charter with the Northern Pacific Railroad to build a line from Duluth, Minnesota to Puget Sound. The payment was a 50 million acre land grant which included 20 sections per mile or 12,800 acres in Minnesota and Oregon, and 40 sections per miles or 25,600 acres in Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington. In Foster County they were given all the odd numbered sections.
Jay Cooke, a famous Philadelphia banker, signed a contract to sell $100,000,000 worth of Northern Pacific bonds bearing 7.3% interest. His commission was to be 12% and he was to have three‑fifths of the company's stock. He gave much of this stock as a bonus to people who purchased the bonds. He convinced investors of the "Fertile Belt" through which the railroad would run. The railroad reached Moorhead in 1871, crossed the Red River on June 1872 and arrived in Bismarck, June 3, 1873.
Hjelm Hansen, a recent immigrant from Norway, was sent by the Minnesota Immigration board in 1869 to visit the Red River Valley. He was well known for his efforts to help the laboring classes. He was encouraged to write letters describing the opportunities in the new land for the Norwegian language newspapers. His description of the fertile land without any stumps and stones were instrumental in attracting many Norwegians to the area.
The Northern Pacific Railroad made a determined effort to attract settlers to buy land, too. It set up a land and immigration department in 1871. This department set up an agency in London and sent representatives abroad to organize colonies of immigrants to come to the new land. They distributed optimistic literature about Dakota Territory all over Europe and the Eastern United States. They offered railroad lands on attractive installment terms, of ten percent down and seven year to pay the balance. They built large reception houses at Duluth, Glyndon and Brainerd, Minnesota, plus free transportation to the purchaser of the Northern Pacific lands.
The Dakota Territorial Government also promoted settlement. In January of 1871 the Legislature established a Bureau of Immigration under the direction of James S. Foster, a land dealer in Yankton. Mr. Foster, brother of Major George I. Foster of Fargo, was living in Syracuse, New York. In 1863 he was sent out to explore Iowa, Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. He reported that the territory was favorable for settlement. In 1864 a special train consisting of twenty cars and carrying a colony of 100 families, left Syracuse, New York and traveled to Marshalltown, Iowa, where teams were secured for the 300-mile journey overland through miry sloughs and uninhabited prairies. It was mid May before the plains of Dakota was reached. (Record" Vol. 1, June 1896‑No. 12)
The year proved to be bad for drought and grasshoppers and because of these conditions many people left to go to other areas.
Foster settled in Yankton and acquired a reputation of being a hustler. He combined his private and his official activities in his efforts to sell the area to immigrants. He distributed literature concerning the opportunities in the Dakota Territory in English and Swedish languages, mailed boomer editions of the Yankton newspapers to various areas, and offered steam boat passage from Norway and Sweden to people who would promote immigration. In 1873 the legislature divided all of the land east of the Missouri River into 27 counties in order to give the impression that it was being settled. The area known as Foster County was officially named during the 1873 Territorial meeting at Yankton. This area was named for James S. Foster.
Another development, besides the railroad, responsible for the Dakota Boom of the 1800s was the improvement in flour milling. This new process made Minneapolis the flour-milling center and created a market for hard spring wheat. Land in the eastern states was pretty well settled and capitalists who acquired Northern Pacific bonds began to establish Bonanza Farms on the Dakota land to raise wheat.
People who held bonds or preferred stock could exchange them for railroad lands and manufacturers developed machinery capable of cultivating this vast area of level land.
All these things encouraged people to risk their lives and savings to come to a new area where nothing existed but miles and miles of prairie grass and wild animals, knowing also that they might not see other people for days and weeks at a time.
Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 22