Organ Supply Industries, Incorporated is a pipe organ parts manufacturer founded in 1924 as the Organ Supply Corporation in Erie, Pennsylvania. With over 46,000 square feet (4,300m2) of manufacturing floor, it is the largest organ parts supplier in North America.
In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions or other means for producing tones, each played with its own keyboard, played either with the hands on a keyboard or with the feet using pedals. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria, who invented the water organ. It was played throughout the Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman world, particularly during races and games. During the early medieval period it spread from the Byzantine Empire, where it continued to be used in secular (non-religious) and imperial court music, to Western Europe, where it gradually assumed a prominent place in the liturgy of the Catholic Church. Subsequently it re-emerged as a secular and recital instrument in the Classical music tradition.
Erie is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Named for the lake and the Native American Erie people who lived in the area until the mid-17th century, Erie is the fourth-largest city in Pennsylvania, as well as the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania, with a population of 101,786 at the 2010 census. The estimated population in 2017 had decreased to 97,369. The Erie metropolitan area, equivalent to all of Erie County, consists of 276,207 residents. The Erie-Meadville, PA Combined Statistical Area has a population of 369,331, as of the 2010 Census.
North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere; it is also considered by some to be a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea.
Burdett Organ Co of Erie attends first U.S. World's Fair in Philadelphia for centennial in 1876
Organ Supply Industries has its origins in two organ builders whom Erie investors encouraged to move their operations to Erie in the late 19th century. They include the Burdett Reed Organ Company, of Chicago, a reed organ manufacturer whose operation was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; and the A. B. Felgemaker Organ Company, originally of Buffalo, New York. The Tellers-Kent Organ Company, sprang from two Felgemaker employees in 1906.
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in Illinois, as well as the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,716,450 (2017), it is the most populous city in the Midwest. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, often referred to as Chicagoland, and the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States. The metropolitan area, at nearly 10 million people, is the third-largest in the United States, and the fourth largest in North America and the third largest metropolitan area in the world by land area.
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago from October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles (9 km2) of the city, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. The fire began in a neighborhood southwest of the city center. A long period of hot, dry, windy conditions, and the wooden construction prevalent in the city led to a conflagration. The fire leapt the south branch of the Chicago River and destroyed much of central Chicago, and then leapt the main branch of the river consuming the near north side.
The Felgemaker Organ Company was a manufacturer of pipe organs based out of Erie, Pennsylvania in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
A. B. Felgemaker sent Anton Gottfried and his colleague Henry Kugel from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Erie, where they set up shop in the Felgemaker plant. The A. Gottfried Organ Company relocated to its own Erie facilities in 1905. Gottfried and Kugel had previously worked for the Haskell Company, a prominent organ manufacturer in Philadelphia. Fred Durst, of Hinners Organ Company of Pekin, Illinois, joined as superintendent of A. Gottfried Organ Company in 1917. Harry Auch and John Hallas, of the Haskell Company, came to Erie in 1920 to join Gottfried, Kugel, and Kugel's son Harry Kugel in the formation of a metal organ pipe manufacturer called National Organ Supply. Durst and Henry Kugel's sons Harry and Ruben Kugel formed Organ Supply Corporation in 1924. The pipe manufacturing company was purchased by Organ Supply Corporation in 1958. Fred Gluck purchased the Organ Supply Corporation in the early 1970s and merged it with Durst and Company[lower-alpha 1] to form Durst Organ Supply Company, Incorporated. The name was changed to Organ Supply Industries, Incorporated in 1978.
Hinners Organ Company was an American manufacturer of reed and pipe organs located in Pekin, Illinois. Established in 1879 by German-American John Hinners, the firm grew through several partners, becoming Hinners & Fink in 1881, Hinners & Albertsen in 1886, and Hinners Organ Company in 1902. In the 1920s Hinners established a subsidiary, the Illinois Organ Supply Company, which mass-produced parts for Hinners and other firms. Business declined in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, changing technology, and increasing competition. Hinners became a service company in 1936 and closed in 1942.
Pekin (Pee-kin) is a city in and the county seat of Tazewell County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located on the Illinois River, Pekin is the largest city of Tazewell County and the second most populous municipality of the Peoria metropolitan area, after Peoria itself. As of the 2010 census, its population is 34,094. A small portion of the city limits extend into Peoria County. Pekin is the 13th-most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago Metropolitan Area. It is the most populous municipality in the United States with the name Pekin.
Notes
↑ Durst & Co. was formed in 1926 and acquired the Erie Reed Pipe Company in 1933.
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