The extent to which railroads sometimes go in place discriminations is shown by cases cited in Cator and Lewis. One of the towns on the route of the Northern Pacific in Montana incurred the displeasure of the railway authorities, and they determined to ruin it and build up a new town. So they refused to stop their trains in the town or have a depot there. The railroad built a new depot on lands of its own, 3 miles beyond, and ran its trains through the old town to the new site, thereby feeding its revenge and enhancing the value of its own land at the same time, at the cost of ruining the town already established. The courts sustained the railroad’s claim that it had a right to run through to the new depot, though some of the judges dissented, regarding such favor as despotic and destructive of public rights.[119] “A town in the State of Iowa, which had thriven under reasonable railroad facilities, was almost depopulated by a change of ownership of the railroad line upon which it depended. “As the result of discrimination forty American families were driven out of this small town in a single year. Their property was rendered almost worthless, and with great pecuniary loss from no fault of their own they were obliged to abandon their homes and seek new habitations and new avocations. Cases like this were abundant throughout the West. This merely illustrates what was going on in a dozen great States where cities, towns, and villages were being depopulated or their business establishments placed at great disadvantage by reason of iniquitous discriminations.”[120] Peopled flocked into the towns and cities favored with the low rates, and when the competitive rates were removed, as they have been in many cases, the boom towns collapsed, and the inflated building and business interests shrunk to skin and bone. Better accommodations are frequently accorded to places in which the railway or its officers are interested than to other places. When a new road is projected there are usually town-lot and land companies along the lines, in which prominent officials of the road may be directly or indirectly interested. Their knowledge of the future location of the road is utilized in purchasing tracts of land at low values to be used for town sites and sold at high prices after the railway is built. “Sometimes the entire road becomes a land-grabbing scheme with a town-lot speculation attachment. The western half of one of the principal roads in Iowa was built mainly on this plan. Its natural route was along one of the old stage roads running through the county seats of the counties through which it must pass. About these towns was a well-settled country, with rich farms well improved for that early day. The towns were moderate in size, but had been established as trading points for many years, and stores, schools, and churches had grown up.