[3] Parts of the site were acquired by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency prior to being gifted to the federal government.

Through a focus on luxury and customer comfort, Pullman gained a large market share in the railroad car sector.

The expensive cars were typically rented out to railroads with trained employees, many of whom were former house slaves recently freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.

When a new factory was required to meet demand, Pullman was presented with an opportunity to integrate employee betterment with manufacturing efficiency.

As land values were skyrocketing in the city proper, Pullman purchased 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) south of Chicago, between the Illinois Central Railroad line and Lake Calumet.

He organized the Pullman Land Association to oversee non-manufacturing real estate and transferred all but 500 acres (200 ha) to its control.

[13] Solon Spencer Beman was commissioned with the design of the company town buildings, including 1,300 housing units.

Additional housing was built north of the factories after the Union Foundry and Allen Paper Car Company moved their operations there.

Pullman was a popular attraction during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, as visitors came to see the unusual town advertised in the Transportation Building.

Demand for sleeping cars plummeted, so to maintain a profitable enterprise, Pullman lowered wages for employees.

If strikers shut down lines with mail cars, the federal government would have to intervene as it threatened interstate commerce.

It was an example of the power a union could have against an industry, but it also affirmed the right of the government to intervene against strikes, particularly after the Supreme Court upheld the actions in in re Debs (1895).

The Illinois Supreme Court forced the Pullman Company to sell its non-industrial holdings in 1898 and residents were given the first option on purchasing their houses.

[13] Unionization of African American workers began in 1925, when the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was founded by A. Philip Randolph in New York City.

The NAACP lauded the contract and recognized it as an important step in increasing and improving the "respect, recognition and influence, and economic advance" of African Americans.

They were designed to sit in a park-like setting, overlooking the artificial Lake Vista, which was a cooling reservoir for the Corliss steam engine.

Beman designed the structures with a linear manufacturing process in mind, making the factory an early adapter of the assembly line.

[13] A proposal in 1960 to demolish the community in favor of a new industrial park galvanized residents to form the Pullman Civic Organization (PCO) to support its preservation.

The PCO provided grants to help residents restore their houses, and a non-profit called the Historic Pullman Foundation purchased several key buildings for rehabilitation in the 1970s.

[13] President Barack Obama designated Pullman as a national monument, thus a component of the NPS, on February 19, 2015.

[19] In 2017, the National Park Service approved a plan to restore the clock tower building and turn it into a visitor center.

[21] The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 redesignated the site as Pullman National Historical Park in December 2022.

[25][26] In the 2004 animated Christmas film The Polar Express, which references several pieces of railroad history, the look of the buildings at the North Pole Square were inspired by the Pullman Factory.