Chapter VI: The Town of Pullman

Like most other industries, the Pullman Palace Car Company felt the effect of the financial depression immediately following 1873, but the reaction followed, and on the resumption of specie payments in 1879 dawned a new era in the Company's history and a rapid expansion of its business. To meet this expansion and to extend the business still farther along the line of general car building, it became necessary to enlarge the plant. The shops already established in St. Louis, Detroit, Elmira, and Wilmington were unable to provide the volume required by the increasing demand for the Company's output. It was evident that new shops must be built on a larger and more comprehensive scale than any that had gone before.

In 1879 the Chicago newspapers were alert to confirm the rumor that George M. Pullman was planning to locate his new shops at Chicago. The following year the rumor became fact and the question of the exact location became of paramount interest.

Chicago with its central position with reference to the railway systems of the continent, seemed the natural site, but there were weighty objections, touching both finance and the matter of labor, to be urged against building within the city limits proper. Sites were visited by representatives of the Company at Hinsdale, Illinois, and Wolf Lake, Indiana, but in April it was definitely announced that the works would be located on the Illinois Central Railroad on the shore of Lake Calumet. A Chicago newspaper commented on the decision of the Company as follows:

A notable addition to Chicago's mercantile industry is to be the
extensive car works of the Pullman Palace Car Company, ground
for which is to be broken today. A larger establishment for
manufacturing purposes will not exist in the West, and while it will
contain all the latest and most improved mechanical appliances in
use, it will embody in its architecture grace and beauty that
is quite characteristic of the palace car. The works are to cost
$1,000,000; about 2,000 men are to be employed in them, and the
extended arrangement of machinery is to be moved by the Corliss
engine, one of the Centennial wonders, which has been purchased by
the Pullmans.

An interesting personal reminiscence of this famous real estate operation may be found in Frederick Francis Cook's _Bygone Days in Chicago_.

Another "Pullman scoop" was of an extraordinary real-estate and
manufacturing interest when "negotiated"--the slang to be accepted
for once in its proper meaning. In the later seventies, besides
other duties, I had charge of the real-estate department of the
_Times_. It became known that the Pullman Company intended to build
a manufacturing town somewhere, but whether in the environs of
Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, or other western point, was for the
public an open question for many months--and, I dare say, for a time
was an unsettled proposition with the company itself, for St. Louis
offered large inducements in the way of land grants. What finally
turned the scales in favor of Chicago, according to Mr. Pullman's
declaration to me, was the more favorable climatic conditions
presented by Chicago. It was his contention that during the summer a
man could do at least ten per cent more work near Lake Michigan than
in the Mississippi Valley in the latitude of St. Louis.

During many disturbing weeks--for the whole real-estate market in
at least three cities waited on the decision--frequent announcements
were made that the directors of the company, or its committee on
site, had inspected this locality, or that, in the vicinity of one
city or another, and so the wearisome time went on. Many places were
visited about Chicago--some to the north, some on the Desplaines,
some in the neighborhood of the Canal, but somehow none near Calumet
Lake, a fact which finally aroused my suspicions. In the meantime,
unverifiable reports of large transactions in that locality floated
about in real-estate circles. Finally, I pinned down an actual sale
of large dimensions, with Colonel "Jim" Bowen as the ostensible
purchaser. That opened my eyes, for the colonel's circumstances at
this time put such a transaction on his own account altogether out
of the question.

Almost daily at this time Mr. Pullman was interviewed on the
situation by the real-estate newspaper phalanx--Henry D. Lloyd was
then in charge for the _Tribune_--but "nothing decided," was the
stereotyped reply. By and by I discovered that almost invariably if
I went at a certain hour, "Colonel Jim" would be largely in evidence
about the Pullman headquarters, with an air of doing a "land-office
business," and, as it turned out, he was actually doing something
very much like it. Slowly I picked up clue after clue, pieced this
to that, and one day felt in a position to say to Mr. Pullman that I
had located the site. He seemed amused, and laughingly replied that
he was pleased to hear it, as it would save the committee on site a
lot of trouble; and, as some of them were that very day looking at
a Desplaines River site near Riverside--a trip most ostentatiously
advertised in advance--he thought he would telegraph them to stop
looking, and come back to town.

It was always a pleasure to interview Mr. Pullman, for he had a way
of making you feel at ease, and I entered heartily into the humor
of his jocularity. But, as in a bantering way, I let out link after
link of my chain of evidence, he became more and more serious, and
finally--without committing himself, however--took the ground that
even if true, in view of the importance of their plans, no paper
having the good of Chicago at heart ought by premature publication
to interfere with them. He pressed this point more and more, and
finally made frank confession that I was on the right track, by
acknowledging that they had already bought many hundreds of acres,
were negotiating for many hundreds more which would be advanced to
prohibitive prices by publication, and the whole scheme would
thus be wrecked. On the other hand, if I withheld publication, he
promised that I should have the matter exclusively--the whole vast
improvement scheme, unique plan of administration, etc. As there was
the danger in waiting that one of my rivals might get hold of the
facts, exploit them, and thus turn the tables on me, I replied that
the matter was of too great moment for me to take the responsibility
of holding the news, and that I should have to consult Mr. Storey.
It happened that Mr. Storey had invested quite extensively in South
Side boulevard property; and, as a great improvement southward
could not fail to add to the value of his holding, and there was the
further prospect of a more complete exclusive account later than was
possible with my skeleton information, he gave a ready assent.

The town of Pullman meant far more in the mind of its founder than a mere industrial establishment. The dreary, water-soaked prairie was raised to high, dry land; an entire town was planned and blocked out following Mr. Pullman's own design. Architects and landscape architects worked together to carry out the plan to a harmonious and pleasing fulfillment. Among the more prominent details of this vast work were included a system by which the sewage of the town was collected and pumped far away to the Pullman produce farm; the equipment of every house and flat regardless of rental with the most modern appliances of water, gas, and plumbing; the establishment of athletic fields; the concentration of the merchandising of the town under the glass roof of the central arcade building, and the construction of a handsome market house, a fine schoolhouse to accommodate a thousand pupils, a library containing over 8,000 volumes, a savings bank and a large and artistically decorated theater. The population of Pullman in January, 1881, counted four souls. In February, 1882, there were 2,084 inhabitants, a total which had increased to 8,203 by September, 1884.

A contemporary writer closes an enthusiastic description of the town of Pullman with the following paragraph:

Imagine a perfectly equipped town of 12,000 inhabitants, built out
from one central thought to a beautiful and harmonious whole. A
town that is bordered with bright beds of flowers and green velvety
stretches of lawn; that is shaded with trees and dotted with parks
and pretty water vistas, and glimpses here and there of artistic
sweeps of landscape gardening; a town where the homes, even to the
most modest, are bright and wholesome and filled with pure air and
light; a town, in a word, where all that is ugly, and discordant,
and demoralizing, is eliminated, and all that inspires to
self-respect, to thrift and to cleanliness of person and of thought
is generously provided. Imagine all this, and try to picture the
empty, sodden morass out of which this beautiful vision was reared,
and you will then have some idea of the splendid work, in its
physical aspects at least, which the far-reaching plan of Mr.
Pullman has wrought.[3]

[3]: _The Story of Pullman_, prepared for distribution at the World's Fair, 1893.