Chicago - Pullman Historic District

George Pullman, builder of the luxurious sleeping cars of American railroads, built the town of Pullman to house his factories and workers south of Chicago in the 1880s. He hired architect Solon Spencer Beman to study the best aspects of European towns and create rows of housing for his workers with managers living at the ends of the blocks. The housing is still lived in today, but the factory is long out of business.

The workers of the town played a significant role in the great national railway strike of May 1894. Pullman had fired workers, but raised rents for the rest to keep his town profitable. The labor unrest exposed this "perfect town" as paternalistic.

The town, now on the National Register of Historic Places, has some interesting architecture including the Hotel Florence, a church and the row housing, some of which is arranged in curved arcades.