SOLD OUT!
The Society has planned its Second Hopefully-Annual bus trip on Saturday, August 28. This year we will be exploring historic delights on the South Side of Chicago – first, the Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House on the campus of the University of Chicago and then the Pullman neighborhood where Pullman railroad cars were once built.
The Frederick C. Robie House in the Hyde Park neighborhood was built between 1909 and 1910 and was placed on the very first National Register of Historic Places list in 1966. At the time that he commissioned Wright to design his home, Robie was only 28 years old and the assistant manager of the Excelsior Supply Company which was owned by his father. He and his wife, Lora Hieronymus Robie, a 1900 graduate of the University of Chicago, selected the property in order to remain close to the campus and the social life of the University.
After lunch on your own near the University, the tour will continue south to the Pullman neighborhood.
Historic Pullman was built in the 1880s by George Pullman as workers’ housing for employees of his railroad car company, the Pullman Palace Car Company. He established behavioral standards that workers had to meet in order to live in the area and charged them rent. The distinctive rowhouses were comfortable by standards of the day, and contained such amenities as indoor plumbing, gas, and sewers.
This was the site of the two-month-long Pullman Strike in 1894 that eventually required intervention by the US government and military. After Pullman died in 1897, the Illinois Supreme Court required the company to sell the town because operating it was outside the company’s charter. In 1889, the town and other major portions of the South Side were annexed by Chicago and within ten years, the city sold the houses to their occupants.
Tickets for the trip are $65 per person and include tour admissions and bus transportation. The tour bus will depart from the Historical Society, 101 S. Maple St., promptly at 9 a.m. and is expected to return back there by 5 p.m. Lunch will be on your own. Comfortable clothing and shoes are strongly urged.
Also, be aware that the Society will follow all CDC COVID-19 recommendations in effect at the time of the tour, so please be prepared to wear a mask on the bus and during the tours, if that is still required.
Unfortunately, this event is sold out.