These days we race from gate to gate between planes or grab an Uber with a touch on a phone. Yet, for over a century, any well-travelled American was a customer of Chicago’s Parmelee Transportation Company, which also served other cities including New York City. Here is a short chronicle of the history of this unsung, fascinating company that touched so many lives, equine and human.
Frank Parmelee was born on a farm in 1816 in Genesee County, upstate New York. By the age of twelve, Frank was working at an inn, then on stagecoaches as a driver. At seventeen, he was working for stagecoach and Great Lakes steamer operator General Reed of Erie, Pennsylvania, ultimately serving as a cabin boy on the ship James Madison which ran the Buffalo to Chicago route. By 1850, the thirty-four-year-old Parmelee had saved enough money to go into business on his own in Will County, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. After three years of trying various enterprises, in 1853 Frank finally began the business that would take him to fame and fortune.
The 1850s witnessed expansion of the nation’s embryonic railroad system, with five lines reaching Chicago by 1853. Over the next four decades, railroad construction accelerated, reaching every corner of the nation. The nexus of this emerging transportation system was (and is) Chicago, where the eastern lines including the Erie, Pennsylvania, New York Central, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroads met the western lines of the Burlington, Santa Fe, Rock Island, and other railroads.
Over time, the Mississippi River became a rough border between the eastern roads and the western lines. Both freight and passengers had to change trains at New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, or – by far the most important interchange point – Chicago. Unlike Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Kansas City, Chicago never had a true union station where all the railroads came together, despite the Pennsylvania and Burlington having the bravado to call their station “Chicago Union Station.” To attract passengers, the railroads worked with each other to build six large terminals in Chicago.
Seeing the need to transfer passengers and their baggage between trains and stations, in 1853 Frank and two partners formed Frank Parmelee and Company to meet the demand. When passengers bought tickets calling for a change of railroads in Chicago, they received a coupon for a “free” transfer between stations. Parmelee picked them up at their arrival station and took them to the departure station, collecting the coupons from the passengers. The company then collected a fee from each receiving railroad based on the number of coupons they turned in to the railroad.
The partners soon branched out, in 1855 opening a horse-drawn street railway on State Street in Chicago, and other transportation services in the city. In 1863, they sold their street railway system in order to concentrate on the railroad transfer business.
Parmelee agents would board every inbound train just outside Chicago, riding the last leg and making sure passengers were prepared and informed for their transfers in the city. More agents were stationed in each railroad terminal to further assist the crowds flowing through Chicago. Transportation to hotels and shopping districts was also available from the company. Above all else, unlike some potential competitors, Parmelee agents were honest and helpful. Customers trusted the company with themselves and their belongings.
Over the years, customers included Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Calvin Coolidge. Parmelee also served the wealthy and top celebrities. Anyone who travelled from the cities of the northeast to those of the west and California travelled with Parmelee. Famous stage actress Sarah Bernhardt took forty large trunks on her national tours, each requiring two strong men to carry. The volume of baggage carried by the company declined when women started wearing fewer petticoats and less clothing in general.
The company continued to grow through boomtimes and recessions, surviving the great Chicago fire of 1871. Frank Parmelee was proud of his operation. The drivers wore elaborate uniforms and hats, and the carriages and omnibuses were ornately decorated. He developed his own stable of quality horses through breeding and conditioning. By 1881, the company had seventy-five omnibuses, seventy-five baggage wagons, 250 horses, and 130 employees.
In 1903, the tired 86-year-old Parmelee sold his company to a syndicate led by Chicago merchant prince Marshall Field. At the same time, the horseless carriage was coming into use, and the company began to retire its stable of horses. In 1919, the company again changed hands, purchased by the people who owned the Chicago Yellow Cab company.
Parmelee continued into the twentieth century as the railroads still carried millions of people. With its link to the taxicab business, the company expanded into cab operations in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and New York City. In 1929, the company went public, later listing on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1930, Morris Markin’s Checker Cab Manufacturing Corporation of Kalamazoo, Michigan, makers of the famous Checker taxis and cars, acquired control of Parmelee.
In 1952, Parmelee’s 2,500 vehicles and 6,800 employees carried 67 million passengers a total of 130 million miles. Among transportation “empires,” probably only Otis Elevator had a shorter average trip length. One million, six hundred thousand people moved between the train stations of Chicago, along with 1.25 million pieces of checked baggage, just before the great rise of the airline industry. The 1,600-vehicle New York cab operation alone carried 45 million people 85 million miles.
In a 1953 booklet from which we have taken these photos, the company celebrated its 100th anniversary by parading the latest vehicles.
As Chicago became the airline nexus of the nation, with the busiest airport (Midway), Parmelee served that market as well with its Continental Air Transport subsidiary.
Today, those Chicago railroad depots have gone quiet except for commuter trains and Amtrak, which uses the so-called Union Station. The original airport shuttle service lives on as Go Airport Express, now a division of the New England Transportation Group, which operates in several cities. Short-haul, last-mile transportation continues to be a key element in the nation’s logistics and transportation system, though faster and cleaner today than when thousands of horses plied the streets of Chicago.
Gary Hoover
Executive Director
American Business History Center
