Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 287, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1913 — RAN FIRST PULLMAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RAN FIRST PULLMAN

OLD CONDUCTOR TELLS OF EPOCH-MAKING EVENT. Cara Were Crude, and There Wae Nc Genera) Enthusiasm Over the New Mode of ¥ravel—None Saw Its Possibilities. Fifty-six years ago last month i. !*■ Barnes of Chanute, Kan., was a conductor on the first Pullman car ever run in this country. He made the trip between Bloomington, IlL* and Chicago oil the night of September 1, 1857, and one of his passengers was George M. Pullman, inventor of the sleeping car. Looking back through 56 years, Mr. Barnes recalled that Mr. Pullman arose on the morning sos f of September 2 with a rather tired feeling and somewhat doubtful as to the ultimate success of his invention. Three other passengers who slept that night in the first crude sleeper restrained any inclination they might have felt to tender Mr. Pullman an ov,ation. In fact. It was rather a weary company when it reached Chicago, and alter a conference it was decided bythepassengers that nothing would be gained by presenting Mr. Pullman with a gold-headed cane In recognition of his marvelous ingenuity. i ' Mrj Barnes is seventy-eight years old and it probably would be unfair to v4sit him with the punishment to which he is clearly entitled, but he told how he stood idly by and permitted the first Pullman porter in history to maltreat a passenger with a whisk broom and collect the original Pullman tip. He was a husky lad of twenty-two summers at that time and his muscles were in a good state of preservation, but he did not interfere. Ah, wasted youth. The first Pullman car in America was run over the C. & A. railroad and was built in the shops of the company in Bloomington, 111., under the direction of Mr. Pullman himself. The car was a remodeled day coach, and there were but four compartments, eight berths, four upper and four lower. Then, as now, the lower berth enjoyed a monopoly of public popularity, and the upper berths were vacant on that first memorable night. All the passengers were from Bloomings ton and there were no women on the

sleeping car. The people of Bloomington, little reckoning that history was being made in their midst, did not come down to the station to see the Pullman car’s premier. There was no crowd, and the car, lighted by candles, moved away in solitary grandeur, if suqftit might be called. Mr. Barnes descjibed the first crude car In his office in Chanute. He retired as division superintendent of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway In 1910, after a railroad service covering 56 years, beginning as the first Pullman conductor in 1857. Among his other distinctions he was conductor of the first train that left Kansas City over what now is the Frisco railroad. —Kansas City Star.

interior of First Pullman.