“Pullman House – A Survivor Of Yesteryear”
1940 painting by Herndon Davis
Image courtesy Denver Art Museum
This project is a continuing effort to resurrect the historic log house of George M. Pullman, the famed sleeper railcar maker who lived in Colorado during the 1860s. The Pullman House was originally built near Golden around 1860 as a way station at the crossroads leading to the most famous gold fields in the region. It was purchased by Pullman and associates who assembled its land, the Cold Spring Ranch, together with neighboring parcels into 1,600 acres, which became among the best-known way station ranches in Colorado Territory. Pullman used this ranch and other businesses to raise the money he needed to realize his dream of creating the famed Pullman Palace Car Company.
History of the Pullman House
The Pullman House is a legend of Golden’s heritage, with a remarkable journey and story to tell. It was built as a way station of the Colorado Gold Rush, made of hewn pine logs of the mountains. For 105 years this building stood, passing through the hands of George Pullman, a prominent hotelkeeper, and two Jefferson County sheriffs. It was enlarged to 5 times its original size, and became many different colorful things. It served as a way station for stagecoaches, team-drawn wagons, trains, and automobiles. Where pioneers once paid in gold dust became a place to buy television sets. The march of modernization spelled doom for the frontier structure in 1965, and three newspapers including the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post proclaimed its destruction. However, the logs of the original structure in fact survived, having been numbered, dismantled and spirited up to the mountains of Central City, where they lay in state for 32 years. In 1997 they were returned to Golden, then lay in storage at Camp George West until they were burned in an arson fire in 2009. And yet the house has not been fully wiped out, with logs salvaged from the wreckage. The adventure of the Pullman House continues!
More Pullman History
The historic Pullman Village, which was the company town George Pullman built outside of Chicago starting in 1880. Now a designated national historic landmark district. Quite a far leap from a frontier log ranch house.
The non-profit foundation who have worked since 1960 to save, preserve and restore the many historic places in Pullman Village.
Copyright © 1997-2012 by Richard Gardner