The first settlers, in the Kensington area, which was was West Pullman was originally called, were farmers who arrived in the 1850s. By the 1880s, additional settlers arrived in the neighborhood who catered to the farmers.
In 1880, the construction of a model town by George Pullman produced a boom in Kensington. Their stores, taverns and boarding houses served those workers, as well as visitors to the project.
The location of another company in Kensington brought Italian migrants to the neighborhood, making it a focus of the community in this part of Chicago.
Another focus of settlement was the village of Gano, where real estate developers from Cincinnati sold homes to Pullman employees who wanted to escape stifling corporate control.
West Pullman was inaugurated in the 1890s as an West Pullman, launched as a residential and industrial project for families of workers in factories in the industrial district.
By the first two decades of the 20th century, West Pullman a flourishing community with an industrial core, a commercial area, and churches, schools, parks, and other components of a community.
