Pullman Palace Car Company

Pullman's idea of a sleeping rail car was not new.  The most famous was from a French railroad company.  The "train imperial" was built to honor Napoleon III in 1857 with a dining car, sleeping car and an observation deck.  Eight year later, George Pullman introduced his own. The difference?  Pullman's wasn't for emperors or American royalty - it was for the ordinary citizen.

Pullman set out to prove that luxury was comfortable travel that appealed to all.  Like Henry Ford later, Pullman had a knack for stirring in the public something they didn't know they wanted, and then growing it into a demand.  He was the P.T. Barnum of the railroad world who wanted to dramatize how delightful it was to travel in a Pullman car.

Pullman called his company the Pullman Palace Car Company and he advertised it as a hotel on wheels.  Until the 1950s it remained an open design where travelers could move about easily and in comfort.  Smoking rooms, dining rooms and washrooms were all designed with the ability to become gathering places resembling a hotel.  Cars were divided into men and women cars, but Pullman's aim was to offer luxury for the price of a hotel room. 

Next time...The history of glass
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On December 9, 1854, The Charge of the Light Brigade is published. Alfred Lord Tennyson's classic was published in The Examiner to commemorate the courage of British soldiers during the Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War. 

The Standard of Luxury

By 1863, George Pullman had tried his hand at panning for gold and running a general store in the mining towns out West.  He took his earnings and headed back to Chicago and resumed his improvements to the sleeping rail car.  His original plan of suspending "sleeping shelves" from the ceiling became "upper berths made of a hinged flap that folded up during the day.  He also improved the lower berth to form a bed by sliding the daytime seats together. 

Pullman finished his improvements for over $20,00, setting a new standard in luxury improvements,  and called his sleeping car the "Pioneer A."  But Pullman had created a problem - his Pioneer A was wider than the existing platforms and bridges were built for.  That wasn't Pullman's problem, though as he believed it would make competitors redesign their clearances.

The Pioneer A was part of Lincoln's funeral train from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois in April 1865.  Again, a few years later it carried President Grant from Detroit to Galeta, Illinois.  Both times clearances were widen in those areas to accommodate Pullman's rail car. 

Little by little, Pullman's car became the standard for all.  The demand for Pullman accommodations increased the demand for a uniform railroad gauge so that any passenger could be carried from anywhere to anywhere in the comfort of his own parlor.

Next time...Making it democratic
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On December 5, 1876, a fire in the Brooklyn Theater in New York City, kills nearly 300 and injures hundreds more while watching the play, "The Two Orphans" starring Harry S. Murdock and Kate Claxton.  The fire began when a gaslight ignited scenery behind the stage.  There were no fire hoses or water buckets to extinguish the fire. The star actor died and the building was a total loss.

Luxury on Wheels

In May 1865 the Illinois Journal reported that "a radical change is coming where the public would travel upon the rails with as much ease as though sitting in their parlors, sleep and eat on board with more ease and comfort than it would be possible to do on a first-class steamer." It wouldn't be long before what they had envisioned for their readers would be reality.

Field and Pullman had manufactured and patented a railroad car which was "embellished with window curtains looped in heavy folds, rich Brussels carpeting, black walnut woodwork, French plate mirrors suspended from the walls and beautiful chandeliers with elegant green shades handing from the ceiling, painted with elaborate designs upon an azure background,"  thus quoted the Illinois Journal after touring the new railroad car at the Chicago and Alton depot  a short time later.

George Pullman was born in far western New York, attended school until his was fourteen, then worked as a cabinet maker with his brother.  About that time, the Erie Canal was to be widened at Alton, New York.  Pullman helped move the warehouses to prepare the way. 

Pullman arrived in Chicago in 1855 at the age of 24 and signed on to help solve the problem of the city's water logged streets.  He gained a reputation for raising blocks of brick and stone buildings, including the up-scale Tremont House.  In 1858 he made his first experiments with the railroad sleeping car.  He improved two coaches at the cost of $1,000 each using cherry wood and plush fabrics.  Pullman was just getting started...

Next time.  A short stint in gold
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Today in Pioneer History: "On November 29, 1929, American explorer Richard Byrd makes the first flight over the South Pole.  Byrd and his three companions fly from Rose Ice Shelf to the pole and back in 18 hours and 41 minutes. 

Luxury and Danger on the Iron Horse

In the 1870s and early 1880s, an English born restaurateur, Frederick Henry Harvey, opened a chain of depot restaurants along the Santa Fe line that served good food at moderate prices.  He upgraded his restaurants by adding attractive, young waitresses to his staff thus providing the frontier with a sense of class.  The "Harvey Girls" were the stuff of which poetry was written as one said, "She was winsome, she was neat, she was gloriously sweet and she certainly was very good to me."

Meanwhile inside the trains, George Pullman who had introduced the folding upper berths, thought that his Pullman Palace Car Company could change the travel experience for first class passengers.  With elegant dining cars and luxury parlor cars, the wealthy could never leave the train.  Using burnished walnut, damask draperies and plush seats that converted into beds, passengers could travel in style.  Menus for a holiday meal were 12 courses - oysters, lobster, roast game, and plum pudding, along with vintage French wine with each course.  Pullman was a study in Victorian excess.

Along with the luxuries came a few annoyances and even danger.  Constant dust from the road caused ladies to wear linen dusters over their dresses for protection.  At times cowboys invaded the sanctuary of first class to fire off a few rounds, spreading panic among the passengers.  Professional card sharks in the parlor cars used their skills to relieve the wealthy of their cash as one, George Devol, reportedly took passengers for over $2 million in card games.

More dangerous than these annoyances was the unpredictable weather on the plains.  Violent spring storms washed away tracks and bridges, while blizzards caused trains to stop altogether in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization.  In 1875 a Denver-bound train ran into such a blizzard and it was 11 days before they could reach their destination.  With temperatures below freezing and food reduced to a few cans of oysters aboard, it was a danger not too uncommon for travelers of the rails.

The transcontinental railroad - along with the luxury and danger - the "iron horse"  would settle the West.

Next time...the new settlers
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On May 24, 1844, in a demonstration witnessed by members of Congress, American inventor Samuel F.B. Morse dispatches a telegraph message from the U.S. Capitol to Alfred Vail at a railroad station in Baltimore. The message–“What Hath God Wrought?”–was telegraphed back to the Capitol a moment later by Vail.