Austin Organ Co.
Opus 43, 1901

Updated by James R. Stettner, listing conversations with this person as the source of the information: Wayne Warren.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, March 18, 2017 - Wayne Warren posted on Facebook Organists Association, "First Unitarian Church in Detroit. Built between 1889 and 1890, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It was destroyed by fire on May 10, 2014. The church housed Austin Opus 42, I believe. (the date 1901 was found on the center facade pipe). We saved all the interior pipes about 25 years or so ago. Organ was Tubular-pneumatic. 3 manual with a drawknob console. The pipework was dispersed and utilized in many instruments throughout the US and Canada."

Updated through online information from William M. Worden. -- The First Unitarian Church was not formerly the Church of Our Father Universalist, which was a different congregation and a different building. Eventually, in the 1930s, the two did merge as the First Unitarian-Universalist Church of Detroit at 4605 Cass Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201, which contains a large Skinner. Johnson opus 556 is, therefore, not connected to this building on Woodward Avenue; it was in the Church of Our Father Universalist on Grand Circus Park, about a half mile away. The former First Unitarian Church on Woodward in Detroit burned to a shell on May 10, 2014, but photos of the interior before the fire show the facade pipes gone and nothing behind them. There could have been chests or other remains, but likely the pipes had been scavenged by metal thieves.

Updated through online information from Ray Ahrens. -- Building abandoned and dilapidated.

"Church was originally Church of Our Father, Universalist. Later First Unitarian-Universalist. May have been a rebuild of the earlier 3m. Johnson, Op. 556 of 1881 for this church."