While the truly luxurious era of North American train travel is long gone, the legacy of George Mortimer Pullman’s “Palace Car” lives on at the Pullman National Historic Park. I found myself in Chicago a few months back with a dangerous combination of a free Saturday and a bag full of cameras. Pullman, like Roebling, NJ, was a company town that has been on my “to visit” list for years. I didn’t have a rental car, so I ended up taking Metra from Chicago’s Millennium Station to the Pullman site. This trip was full of firsts, including an overnight Amtrak train in coach from Syracuse to Chicago, a return trip back in a bid-up roomette, and the delightful experience of missing my Metra stop on the way out to Pullman. Metra is the only US commuter rail service I know of in the 21st century that still operates flag stops. Both myself and another passenger were caught off-guard by this and had to make the walk of shame back from the following station to Pullman after we missed our stop.
So who was George Pullman, why is a town named after him, and how did it become a National Historic Park? George Pullman was the founder of the Pullman Company, which built and operated luxurious railroad sleeping accommodations between 1867 and 1969. Pullman started building rail cars in 1863 and incorporated the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1867. A huge publicity boost in 1865 set the company up for success when the newly completed $20,000 Pullman Pioneer Car was attached to President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train, attracting investors like Andrew Carnegie to the company. Pullman’s leasing model was unique - porters, conductors, and the cars themselves were leased by railroads, offsetting their high cost and giving the Pullman Company complete control over the quality of service provided onboard.
The high demand for Pullman cars soon outstripped manufacturing capacity, and as such, a 4,000-acre lot south of Chicago was chosen for a new factory and company town in 1880. Workers could live, work, shop, and relax all within the confines of the Pullman neighborhood. A large arcade contained a movie theater, library, bank, stores, and offices. A singular church, dubbed Greenstone Church for its characteristically greenish limestone walls, served as a place of worship for multiple denominations. A central market building sold produce and meat to workers.
The idealistic community George Pullman envisioned lasted all of 15 years before it was forcibly separated from the Pullman Company by Illinois Supreme Court order. A contributing factor to the demise of Pullman as a company-owned town was the Pullman boycott of 1894. The boycott stemmed from layoffs that left many workers unable to pay rent or buy food, and the company refused to slash prices commensurate with a 30-40% reduction in wages.
The strike spread nationwide as union members refused to run trains with Pullman carriages. The company devised a backhanded way to break the strike by convincing the railroads to run Pullman cars on their mail trains. Refusing to run the mail threatened interstate commerce, which allowed the federal government to step in and use armed troops to break the strike. A subsequent Illinois Supreme Court decision required Pullman to dispose of its non-industrial holdings as they fell outside the company’s charter, which was completed with the divestment of the company town in 1907.
The downfall of the Pullman Company began with the decline of passenger rail travel post-WWII. Air travel was rapidly taking passenger traffic from the railroads, and the allure of Pullman service quickly faded. The last railcars rolled out of the complex in 1982, although the Pullman-Standard Company had dissolved in 1969. Plans to preserve the old administration building and shops had been in the works since 1991 when the state of Illinois purchased the structures, but no real action was taken until after the whole complex went up in flames on December 6, 1998. A man who “heard voices” in his head set the blaze, which completely gutted the structure. The National Park Service has since renovated what’s left of the administration building into a visitors center that has exhibits on the history of Pullman and its significance as a National Historic Park.
I thought it was interesting that the layout of Pullman is the inverse of Roebling. Whereas the cheapest houses in Roebling were located right next to the steel mills, the nicest houses for company executives were right across the street from the factories in Pullman. The community of Pullman provided everything its residents could need, including a luxurious hotel for visitors, a massive arcade with a post office, movie theater, library, and a central market where workers could purchase groceries. Most of the housing and structural layout of the town has survived. The Arcade was demolished in 1926, and Market Hall burned in 1974.
The Hotel Florence is now managed by the National Park Service, Greenstone Church is home to a Methodist congregation, and the Bielenberg Historic Pullman House Foundation operates a coffee shop out of a former executive’s house. I’d highly recommend stopping by the coffee shop if you’re in town for a visit.
