After the American Revolution, prosperous farms filled the fertile Shenandoah Valley and grew food for Eastern cities. On nearby mountains like this one, descendants of Scots-Irish Protestants and other dispossessed people scraped together savings to buy small, inexpensive plots. Many earned modest but crucial income by selling products similar to those produced by their valley neighbors to the same markets. Over time, those markets evolved in life-altering ways. As railroads arrived and provided work for mountain people, they also opened access to regions with large, competitive farms. By 1890, farms in the Midwest and Great Plains could produce meat and grain cheaply, lowering prices and making it difficult for mountain families to sell their surplus crops at a profit.