re to meet and to chat with George M. Pullman, the
father of the sleeping car, several times, and I found him to be a fine
man, broad-minded in every sense of the word, always approachable and
with always a kind word for every one of the large army of his employees
that he met on his travels, and he always tried to meet them all. It was
also my pleasure to meet his two boys who are veritable chips of the old
block.

One of the legends connected with the western mining history is that
early in the 60s George M. Pullman was a poor prospector and had secured
a lease on a piece of mining ground in Colorado, and that he formed the
idea of the sleeping car from the tiers of bunks in the miners' lodging
house, "bunk houses" they are called. However that may be Mr. Pullman
has been the recipient of many a blessing from the weary traveler, and
the idea, whatever it was, that led him to invent the sleeping car that
has proved such a comfort to the traveler of today, deserves to go down
in history as the greatest idea that ever came from the place where
ideas come from.

It has been my pleasure to visit all the large shops of the Pullman
company, including the town of Pullman, Ill., which is a good-sized
city, named after Mr. Pullman, and was owned by him principally, and the
large number of men employed in his shops there. The town contains fine
churches and public buildings, a splendid library and reading rooms and
amusement halls. And while I was there I failed to see a single saloon.
It seems such places are tabooed there. The shops are the finest in this
country, containing all the modern machinery of the finest kind and the
men employed there are all past masters of their trades. Here are built
all the finest sleeping cars and many of the finest special cars and
railway cars seen on the railroads of this country. In addition there is
also a very large amount of repairing done. As soon as anything goes
wrong with a Pullman car it is at once sent into the shops for repair,
and soon comes out in apple pie order. You may see the Pullman cars all
over this country where there is a steel road, and other countries have
their eyes on the mof late, and in the near future it will be possible
to sleep in a Pullman car whether you are traveling in England, France,
Sweden or China. They are a good thing and are sure to be pushed or
rather pulled along.

In 1893 I went to Mr. Pullman and told him I was thinking of getting the
porters o