June 14, 2016

June 14, 2016

We began the journey back to Tucson this morning.  We took the long way past downtown Chicago to the far south side and the newly minted Pullman National Monument.

In the Visitor Center we watched a short movie and then perused the very limited exhibits.  George Pullman took a very long uncomfortable train journey on his move from New York to Chicago.   A carpenter by trade, he got the idea that people would pay to ride the train in more luxurious surroundings.  He was right.  Eventually he came to dominate the sleeper-car business.  Chicago, the main factory site, was surrounded by a planned company town, since Pullman believed happy employees would be productive workers.  That blew up because as nice as it was people ultimately didn't want to live in a town owned and controlled by their employer.

For a time Pullman was also the largest hotelier in the world serving thousands of people sleeping and eating in his rolling accommodations.  Pullman filled many of these service positions with former slaves looking for opportunity, making him the largest employer of blacks in the nation.  Later these black porters got together and unionized, an event that is considered the birth of the civil rights movement.

With the demise of train travel, the industry and factory eventually closed and the area became another rundown neighborhood of Chicago.  Instead of razing it, the Pullman District was saved by the state but not given money for preservation.  It was just allowed to rot and be destroyed by arson.

From the Visitor Center we took a short walk around the neighborhood. The Pullman commercial and industrial buildings are all decrepit and probably long overdue for demolition.  The surrounding residential homes are in pretty good shape and appear to be taken care of by their proud, newly gentrified residents. Pullman could have made a nice compelling story, complete with interesting history and antique sleeper cars, but they are probably 50 years too late.  What little remaining here is a drain on the bankrupt state of Illinois.  Looking for outside funds the local congressman unsuccessfully tried to get Pullman declared a National Historic Park.  Instead, in a purely political act, Obama declared it a National Monument a few days before his friend, Rahm Emanuel’s 2015 mayoral reelection bid.