CABINET-MAKER GEORGE M

2. Cabinet-maker George M. Pullman had recognized the demand for sleeping cars and had

worked on developing experimental models of sleeping cars in the decade leading up to the

Civil War. However, in spite of the fact that he had made successful

test

runs on the

Chicago and Alton Railroads with his models, he was unable to sell his idea because his

models were too wide and too high for existing train stations and bridges. In 1863, after

spending time working as a storekeeper in a Colorado mining town, he invested his savings

of twenty thousand dollars, a huge fortune at that time and all the money that he had in the

world, in a luxurious sleeping car that he named the Pioneer. Pullman and friend Ben Field

built the Pioneer on the site of the present-day Chicago Union Station. For two years,

however, the Pioneer sat on a railroad siding, useless because

it

could not fit through train

stations and over bridges.