American inventor, born in Chautauqua County, NY, on the 3rd of March 1831. At the age of twenty-two he moved warehouses and other buildings along the line of the Erie canal, then being widened. In 1859 he went to Chicago, and the same year remodeled two railway coaches into sleeping-cars; later, as a contractor, he undertook to raise large brick and stone business blocks to the level of the streets then being filled in, without disturbing the business of the occupants. In this he was successful, using the simple expedient of placing numerous jack-screws underneath and operating them simultaneously. In 1863 he began the building of sleeping-coaches, which are now known all over the world. In 1867 he organized the Pullman Palace Car Company for the manufacture of these coaches on a larger scale. In 1887 he designed the “vestibule train,” which practically unites the separate coaches of an entire train into a single car. In 1880 he founded the industrial town of Pullman. Mr. Pullman became identified with various public enterprises, and was president of a corporation which constructed the Metropolitan elevated system of New York City.
