Drawing on his familys commitment and musical heritage, in 1856 Rudolph founded the Wurlitzer Company in Cincinnati. In the beginning, he used his European contacts to import fine pianos. But seeing room for improvement, he set out to build pianos with outstanding sound, touch response and value. By 1861, Wurlitzer had saved enough money to open a manufacturing facility in Cincinnati and soon expanded his business nationally. At the turn of the century a large factory was built in North Tonawanda, New York. There, the mighty Wurlitzer theater organs  the voice of silent movies for decades  were produced. From violins to band instruments The Wurlitzer had became a household name. Family's gathered around the Wurlitzer upright pianos and the Player Piano in the 1920's.

Wurlitzer Band Instruments and quality violins. Of coarse the Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ.During the early silent film era, motion picture theatres throughout the country engaged pit orchestras and pianists to provide the background music for their stage shows and silent movies.  With the escalating costs of musician labor, not every performance could afford the expense of an orchestra.  This monetary constraint was the inspiration for the concept of a "unit orchestra," where one musician could do the work of many. The unit orchestra, later known as the theatre pipe organ, was designed with imitative orchestral tones in mind, rather than the customary liturgical sounds found in church instruments.  The theatre organ has been described as part military band, part symphony orchestra and part theatrical sound effects.

During the late teens and early twenties, nearly every theatre, large and small installed theatre pipe organs.  Though they were manufactured by many companies, the Wurlitzer product was considered by far the best.  The "Mighty Wurlitzer" enjoyed familiarity with such names as Frigidaire, Victrola, and Kodak.

The Wurlitzer Electric Piano: What became the Wurlitzer electric piano was originally designed by Benjamin Franklin Miessner, born in 1890. An American inventor who became involved with innovations in radio during his early years, Miessner designed an electro-acoustic instrument pick-up in 1921. A company called Amperage manufactured it for guitars in 1928. After selling his radio patents to RCA in 1930, Miessner set up a laboratory to develop his ideas on electrifying musical instruments. with the goal of creating small, affordable electric pianos for educational use. He experimented with ways of amplifying the strings in an acoustic piano that lacked a sound board, and he files a patent for this design in 1931. Miessner continued to develop his theories and give the piano a more powerful tone. He began incorporating metal reeds in place of strings because the reeds' timbre and the decay of their vibrations sounded superior to the muddy quality of the sound-boadless strings.

"At this point Miessner's concept garnered lots of interest from piano manufacturers around the country. His ideas reached the big jukebox and organ company, Wurlitzer, where someone realized the invention had great potential. Wurlitzer bought the patent and the rights to make this instrument and immediately started the development of an electric piano. They wanted to produce an electric piano silmilar to the Rhodes, but with a more piano-like action and sound. The basic design incorporated felt-dressed hammers similar to those in an acoustic piano to stroke the metallic reeds. The vibrations from the stroke on the reeds produced a big, fat, rich tone, which was sensed by the electro-static pick-ups, amplified an routed to the built-in speakers on the front of the piano...

"The first electric piano released by Wurlitzer was the model 100, which came to the market in 1954. It was an instant success. The Wurlitzer Company realized the instrument's potential in music education and offered many special educational models.

In the 30's Wurlitzer also sold Radio's.

Wurlitzer invented the first electronic drum. Called the Sideman in the 1950's. The Wurlitzer Harp was also a fine crafted instrument.  Wurlitzer had a venture with the Martin Guitar Company for Guitars. Electric Guitars and amps, accordians. The Wurlitzer jukebox came around in the 1930's. The 'buble' jukebox in 1946 was placed in the smithsonian institute along with a Wurlitzer pipe organ.

 In 1935 Wurlitzer introduced the worlds first spinet-sized piano. It represented a historic breakthrough in style, tone and performance along with the value so critical during Americas economic depression. Notable among design innovations characteristic of Wurlitzer were larger soundboard areas -- providing "bigger" sound from smaller piano models.

The untold story of Wurlizer and how they helped to build the first smart bomb drone. During World War II. Wurlitzer Musical Instrument Company. It actually made a great deal of sense. Wurlitzer had a proprietary knowledge of wood and the know-how to produce complicated shapes like piano frames - or aircraft wings - quickly and cheaply. The epicenter of the effort ended up being a piano plant in DeKalb, Illinois. "Wurlitzer had the personnel and the know how," notes DeKalb historian Roger Keys. "They had several patents on unique assembly processes. And when they were approached by the Navy to make the TDR, they were extremely enthusiastic about it. In the span of about six months they completely converted all their tooling to build them." A furniture factory adjacent to the piano plant was refitted as an assembly line and a runway constructed nearby. Work then commenced at a hectic pace. Employees at the plant, mostly women and draft-ineligible men and boys, believed they were building training planes. Few if any knew the real significance of their efforts.

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This Historical Sketch of the Wurlitzer Company in blue may be copied for educational use only. No other part of this page may be reproduced or copied.

Wurlitzer Company

DeKalb, Illinois

The Wurlitzer Company began in 1856 when Rudolph Wurlitzer, a Cincinnati bank clerk,sold $700 worth of musical instruments he had bought from family and friends in Germany. Thebusiness was incorporated in Ohio in 1890 under the name The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company.For the first fifty years, Wurlitzer was primarily a retail instrument business operating out of itsCincinnati Store headquarters. Although fire destroyed the companys headquarters in 1904, anew building was completed in time to celebrate Wurltizers fiftieth anniversary in 1906.In 1908, the Wurlitzer Company bought the DeKleist Musical Instrument ManufacturingCompany in North Tonawanda, New York. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Manufacturing Companycontinued production of automatic musical instruments: player pianos, military bands andpianorchestras. In 1910, the Wurlitzer Company bought the Hope-Jones Organ Company andbegan to manufacture unit-orchestra pipe organs at their North Tonawanda plant. These werepipe organs equipped with bells, gongs, horns and sirens. They became known as MightyWurlitzers and provided the musical background in silent movie houses all over the world andwere also built for churches and private homes. In 1919, Wurlitzer bought the Melville-ClarkPiano Company of DeKalb, Illinois. Wurlitzer pianos were then manufactured at the DeKalbfacilities under a variety of names: the Apollo Piano Company, the DeKalb Piano Company andthe Wurlitzer Grand Piano Company. Each name designated a different quality, price range andstyle.With the decline of sales during the 1920's and 1930's, production of automatic musicalinstruments ceased until the manufacture of the first juke box in 1934. For a brief time, radiosand refrigerators were made by the Wurlitzer controlled All-American Mohawk Corporation. Itwas not a successful venture and ended in the mid-1930's. Many of the Wurlitzer retail storeswere, at that time, in bad locations and needed repairs. The solutions to these problems cameabout with a reorganization of the company in 1935. With the reorganization, many retail storeswere sold, piano manufacturing was consolidated in DeKalb and many subsidiaries weredissolved or absorbed completely into the Wurlitzer Company.During World War II, Wurlitzer halted production of musical instruments. Thecompanys defense production efforts were recognized in 1943 and 1944 when its NorthTonawanda and DeKalb plants received the Army-Navy E Award. In 1946, peacetimeproduction resumed and the Wurlitzer Company introduced two new instruments: the electricorgan (1947) and the electric piano (1954).In 1956, the Wurltizer Company celebrated its centennial. That same year a new plant atCorinth, Mississippi, was completed. Later, plants were opened in Holly Springs, Mississippi(1961), Logan, Utah (1970) and Hullhorst, West Germany (1960). The new facilities replacedthose at North Tonawanda and DeKalb. The North Tonawanda plant ceased production of jukeboxes in 1974, becoming the companys engineering and research center. In 1973, the DeKalb plant ended production of pianos maintaining only marketing and administrative offices. In1977, the Wurlitzer Companys corporate headquarters moved to DeKalb, including theengineering and research center from North Tonawanda.Leadership of the company, after Rudolphs death in 1914, was assumed by his threesons. Each son acted as president and, then chairman of the board, successively. IN 1934, R.C.Rolfing was hired as vice-president and general manager. It was his reorganization that helpedthe company through the Depression years. Rolfing succeeded the last of the founders sons in1941 as president of the company and in 1966 as chairman of the board. Farny Wurlitzer,Rudophs youngest son, died in 1972. Rolfing died in 1974 and was succeeded by A.D. Arsemas chairman of the board. W.N. Herleman, president of the company, was succeeded by George B. Howell.Wurlitzer was sold to the Baldwin Company in 1988 and then to the current owners The Gibson Company.

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The company's patents, trademarks and assets were acquired by the Baldwin Company with their purchase of the keyboard division of Wurlitzer in 1988. .The Wurlitzer name and logo are registered trade marks. Such permission was given to me as a employee of Wurlitzer along with certain materials and pictures. They can not be copied or reproduced in anyway without the permission of the new owners of Wurlitzer. Wurlitzer/Baldwin was sold to The Gibson Company. A american tradition in music making guitars are the new owners.