PULLMAN & ROSELAND
Compiled by Weekly staff
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PULLMAN NATIONAL MONUMENT CLOCK TOWER, PHOTO BY ZACHARY CLINGENPEEL
n Labor Day weekend this year, Pullman stepped back into the spotlight. The town where Labor Day originated following the deaths of thirteen company workers during the great rail strike of 1894, celebrated the restoration of the iconic Pullman administration building and clock tower, and its conversion to become the new National Park Service Visitor Center. On February 19, 2015, then-president Barack Obama declared the Pullman Historic Site a National Monument, putting the historic buildings and the district under the direction of the National Park Service. The restoration has been underway ever since, and the long-awaited ribbon cutting took place on Monday, September 6. The model factory town was built just south of Chicago city limits between 1880 and 1884 by George M. Pullman, to manufacture railroad passenger cars, and to house his company's workers and their families. The industrial experiment of building Pullman was well-regulated, sanitary, and employed thousands. Mr. Pullman also forbade drinking establishments in his town. The town of Pullman, prior to being annexed to the city of Chicago, was considered the first planned industrial community in the United States. It is nationally significant for its history, architecture, urban planning, and its important role in the U.S. labor movement. For barely a decade Pullman enjoyed a reputation as a model community, attracting visitors and acclaim from around the world—until the plunging American economy caused the company to lower wages, and increase housing and food costs for the workers. The nationwide, bloody strike in 1894 was the impetus for President Grover Cleveland to establish Labor Day. Today, much of the original housing and many public buildings in Pullman remain intact and well preserved. The location of the factory complex is at 11001 S. Cottage Grove Ave. The residential neighborhood of Pullman stretches for a few city blocks north and south of the factory and administration buildings, divided from neighboring Roseland by the Metra tracks along Cottage Grove. (Tom Shepherd)
BEST CLOCK TOWER
Pullman National Monument Clock Tower
Wake up before sunrise, strike a match to light a lantern filled with whale oil, and stumble downstairs to the kitchen in your two-story Pullman Company house to scarf 76 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ SEPTEMBER 16, 2021
down a hearty breakfast of corn bread and boiled eggs. Walk down Watt Avenue. (now St. Lawrence) past the soaring Greenstone Church, its green steeple and panes of stained glass glowing in the dawn light; past the imposing Arcade shopping center with its Pullman Trust and Savings Bank, capacious library, and many-seated theater; and past the Hotel Florence where visiting dignitaries stay content and warmed by coal-filled ovens. Line up outside the wrought-iron gate just before sunrise with thousands of others on their way to jobs in the erecting shops, the wood machine shop, the dry kilns, the lumber sheds, the blacksmith workshop, the paint shop, or the administrative building with its immense clock tower that counts out the working hours for all. The year could be 1883, although the inscription above the gate house door reads PULLMAN WORKERS' GATE, PHOTO BY MARTHA BAYNE AD 1880, the year George Pullman built this temple of industry to produce palatial wood-and-iron train cars replete with the trims and comforts expected by a bourgeois American passenger. On Labor Day 2021, as I walked down St. Lawrence, much was the same, and much was gone or altered from this nineteenth-century tableau. The Arcade is no longer, replaced by a squat concrete building that houses the Historic Pullman Visitor Center. Greenstone United Methodist Church and the Hotel Florence still stand impressive as ever, even if under construction. So too, the reconstructed working clock tower. Faithful to its original design and purpose, the clock tower at the National Pullman Monument marks the hours in black Roman numerals over white inlay. Although workers may no longer be setting their watches in accordance with the company clock face, tourists can check it to make sure it is still between nine in the morning and five in the evening when the Monument Visiting Center is open. The weathervane at the
