Raw materials from the nearby Californian mining village Lee were brought to Leeland to be transported by train.

[2] On October 15 of the next year, a railway station was opened in Leeland and a regular train service for both passengers and cargo was created.

[4] According to an interview with Deke Lowe, the foreman of the railway section – most of the times an Anglo-American – lived with his family in a house in Leeland.

[2] The area in the Amargosa Valley around Leeland was suitable for agriculture, since enough ground water, that could be easily pumped to the surface by wells, was available.

In Leeland itself, employees of the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad grew vegetables and grains in their backyards on a small scale.

The railway company wanted to increase its profit and reasoned that if homesteaders would settle in the Amargosa Valley they would transport their products by train.

[5] In order to attract homesteaders, the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad created a 10-acre demonstration farm and dairy, that showed the agricultural possibilities of the area.

A receiver of a permit could obtain 160 acres of land if enough water to support at least a twenty-acre crop field was found and developed within two years.

Cruz Venstrom suggested in a 1939 report that the unsuccessfulness of agriculture in southern Nevada was due to the distance between the farmers and their markets.