Bill Rowland writes:

>Does anyone know the names of any Organbuilders that were  in Idaho
>or Iowa  around 1903?
>
>We are trying to discover the builder of our church Organ whose
>plate name is broken and all we have is a state address but not the
>name of the builder.

I'm not an expert on historic Iowa organ builders, but I can mention
a couple that come to mind.

The Verney Organ Co. was in business in Mason City, Iowa for several
years just after the turn of the last century. Only a handful of
Verney organs are known to exist, the largest of which is now in
Christ Episcopal Church, Cedar Rapids. For more, see
http://www.dobsonorgan.com/html/instruments/resto_rebuild/cedarrapids.html

Some of the principals of the Verney company were later involved with
the Burlington Organ Co. of Burlington, which operated around 1910,
if memory serves.

Both of these companies built mechanical action organs (albeit with
some pneumatic offset actions and such). Some details about the organ
in your church might help to identify the builder.

John Panning
Lake City, Iowa

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