Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee, WI 12/2/16:
Chicago’s Pullman National Monument worth a visit
Mike Shymanski was born in an impoverished coal company town in northeast Pennsylvania, moved to Chicago to study architecture as a young man and ended up living in Pullman — another company town, albeit a much nicer one, on the south side of Chicago.
“The two communities couldn’t have been more different,” said Shymanski, who spent the first years of his life in Larksville, Pa., where the Delaware and Hudson Co. mined anthracite coal from 1871 to the 1950s. The company owned many of the buildings in the town, paid miners in “scrip” (its own currency) and was “notorious” for its poor treatment of miners and their families, Shymanski said.
Pullman opened in 1881 as a “model industrial town” and had grown to 9,000 residents by 1885. It was built by George Pullman and his Pullman Palace Car Co. as a reaction to the slums where many immigrant workers lived. He also figured, Shymanski said, that by providing employees with a nice community and good places to live, shop, worship and play, he could keep skilled talent, gain greater productivity and avoid strikes.
The neighborhood included the Victorian-style Florence Hotel and the Clock Tower Administration Building, both of which stand today. Most of the buildings were built using brick created out of clay from nearby Lake Calumet. An exception is the Romanesque Greenstone Church, which was made of Pennsylvania greenstone.
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