Pullman’s Palace Car Company model town conceived by George M. Pullman to house employees of his new car works on Lake Calumet, south of Chicago. With buildings designed by Solon Spenser Beman and grounds by Nathan F. Barrett, the much-acclaimed town received its first residents in 1881. The company’s ownership of the town, which had been the object of national scrutiny during the 1894 Pullman strike, was short-lived. Ordered in 1898 by the Illinois Supreme Court to sell all its non-industrial properties by 1904, the company negotiated a five-year deferment, beginning to sell town dwellings and other properties in 1907. Residents received the first option to buy and were aided by low prices, minimal down payments, and long-term mortgages.

Journals, ledgers, plats, an atlas, land surveys, and other miscellaneous records regarding the town of Pullman, 1876-1919. Financial records include a journal of town construction accounts (including payrolls), 1882-1886, and ledgers recording personal loans to town residents, 1897-1900, and mortgage loans, 1909-1919, for town real estate (listing purchaser’s names, date, lot and block numbers, and principal and interest payments). Property records include Lake Calumet surveys, field notes, maps, and diagrams, 1879-1899, plats of town property showing structures, 1907, and an atlas of town and other corporate properties, 1904. There is also an 1886 statement of tenement capacities in Pullman, an essay describing the town in 1890, and an Arcade Theatre program, 1883.

See also records relating to the town in the Secretary’s Administrative files, Record Group 02/01/03, Contracts and agreements, Record Group 02/01/06, History files, Record Group 09/00/03, and Buildings and property photographs, Record Group 13/01/04, Pullman Company Archives.