Note: Not extant. Not playable. (in this location)
2009-10-09 - Identified through information in the OUSCDB, courtesy of George Nelson. -- Cost $10,000+ -Database Manager
2011-03-28 - Updated through on-line information from John Elwood. -- From <em>Handbook of the Central High School of Philadelphia</em>:<br><br>"A special Organ Dedicatory Number of THE MIRROR was published in October, 1912, giving full details of the proceedings connected with the installation and dedication of the organ. For the issue Dr. Thompson wrote the following note: <blockquote>The organ is not only the most perfect of musical instruments, but the most perfect structure of any kind that owes its origin to the brain of man. It has developed gradually from the "Pan's pipes," with which the primitive shepherd soothed his sheep, up to the complex perfection of the instrument of over two thousand pipes, with which Mr. William L. Austin has equipped our Assembly Room. The gift is unique in its kind, as no school in the country, or probably in the world, is possessed with its equal. It opens a new era in the musical life of the School.</blockquote> The Central High School organ has three manuals and forty stops. As the entire organ is enclosed in swell boxes, under control of separate expression pedals, the organist can use any stop as a solo. The action is electric and derives the necessary current from storage batteries charged by the organ itself. About six hundred electro-magnets and over thirty miles of wire were used. There are 2027 pipes, which vary in length from one and a half inches to twenty-two feet. It was built at a cost of over ten thousand dollars by Mr. C.S. Haskell of Philadelphia."<br><br> William Austin, the donor, was the president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. -Database Manager
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