Wangerin-Weickhardt Co.
1919

from 2025 AIO Convention Handbook: "In 1919, the congregation celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its choir. The theater-style balcony seating was installed at this time, and the Wangerin-Weickhardt Co. rebuilt the organ as part of the church’s anniversary celebrations. The 1919 work rebuild encompassed the addition of seven new ranks of pipework (while one Barckhoff rank was discarded), new electro-pneumatic windchests, a new electric blower to replace the hand-pumped feeder system, and a new detached console with a combination action located at the balcony rail. Along with the seven additional ranks, almost all the manual flue pipes were rescaled to be a half-tone larger. Beyond the rescaling, it does not appear that Wangerin undertook any further voicing changes to the Barckhoff pipework, such as raising cutups or increasing languid nicking. The pipework was placed on new Weickhardt patented windchests, with two main chests per division, and a primary valve operating separate secondary valves on each chest. The façade pipes are on their own unit chests, and so too are the Swell Vox Humana 8ʹ, the Pedal Violone 16ʹ/8ʹ, and the Swell/Pedal Bourdon 16ʹ. The 1890 Barckhoff double-rise reservoir, complete with a discarded gravestone used as a weight, was retained, although the feeders were removed and the intake holes covered from the inside. The expression shutters on both the Swell and Vox Humana enclosures are mechanically operated. Philip Wirsching became tonal director at Wangerin-Weickhardt after George Weickhardt’s death in
February 1919. The tonal changes in scaling and specification indicate involvement from both Weickhardt and Wirsching.

By 1986, the console had been partially gutted. New stopkeys were provided circa 1988, in preparation for the future installation of a solid-state combination action and relay, though this did not appear until the console was rebuilt between 1996 and 1998 by Chris Feiereisen and Virginia Thurow. The windchests were “releathered” using Polylon. Despite some preparations accommodated in the replacement stopkeys from the late 1980s, these additions never materialized. In 2016, Nolte Organ Building and Supply, Inc., rebuilt the Great primary action, with the original Wangerin primary design modified for better access to the secondary valves. The original Wangerin magnets were replaced, remaining in storage within the organ case."

Updated through online information from John J. Miller.

This is a rebuild of an existing organ.
Identified by John J. Miller, based on personal knowledge of the organ.
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