Hotel Florence

The Hotel Florence is a former hotel located in the Pullman Historic District on the far south side of Chicago, Illinois. It was built in 1881 to a design by architect Solon Spencer Beman. Since 1991, it has been owned by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. The years following the American Civil War saw the growth of a new profession - that of drummer or traveling salesman. The traveling salesman was often assigned a "territory" or quota of sales calls to make that necessitated traveling day and night by train when in the field. In order to meet the needs of traveling salesmen and other nighttime travelers, Chicago inventor George Pullman helped to invent the sleeping car, a railroad passenger car whose seats could be converted...