The Empty City: How a Housing Shortage Stalled Pullman’s Growth

The local column of the Pullman Herald, dated November 10, 1888, highlights a critical bottleneck in the town's rapid expansion. The editor notes bluntly: 'There is not a vacant house, store, or room in town, and the demand for them is great.'

This scarcity was not merely an inconvenience but a barrier to economic growth. The paper quotes a correspondent from the Moscow Star, warning local capitalists: 'The scarcity of houses in town is actually driving to other places people who would locate here but cannot get a house to live in.' The advice was direct: 'Let some of our capitalists put up some houses for renting purposes and they will reap rich returns from the investment.'

Simultaneously, the paper reports on the financial mechanisms emerging to solve this problem. The Pullman Building and Loan Association held its regular meeting, where loanable funds were 'all taken at 18 per cent, and over.' Photographer Taylor secured $500 of the loan to erect a new building on Main Street lots he had recently purchased. The editor urges every man paying high rents to investigate this organization, signaling that traditional rental markets were failing to meet demand.

Construction was underway—'ten new buildings in course of erection or just completed'—but the lag between construction and occupancy meant the housing crunch remained acute. Meanwhile, land speculation continued elsewhere, with a party of Eastern farmers negotiating for 1,360 acres of improved and unimproved land, suggesting that capital was flowing into raw acreage rather than immediate urban shelter.