Chicago's Railroads and Parmelee's Transfer Company: A Century of Travel

Together, for over a century, Chicago's railroads and the Parmelee Transfer Company moved millions of tourists, business travelers, immigrants, settlers, soldiers, families, even corpses. The hub of America's great railway system, Chicago was a maze of depots connected by the Parmelee Company, who in their hundred-year history ferried both the illustrious (George Armstrong Custer, on his way to Little Bighorn) and the ill-prepared (new immigrants, remorselessly preyed upon by Chicago's lodging-house shills). With rare illustrations from fifty private collections and museums, Robert Parmelee's gripping and personal history evokes a wonderfully American story. As the nation expanded westward, saw a boom in commerce and tourism, experienced world wars and world fairs, and flocked to the newly opened national parks, it was the Chicago railroads and the plucky Parmelees who made sure Americans reached their destinations. Publication coincides with the sesquicentennial of Chicago's railway system.