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.