Edmond Johnson on April 27th, 2023:
By 1960, the tonal design of the 1929 Hall Organ Co. instrument was seen as antiquated, and the organ was due for a rebuilding. That year Clarence Mader (then the College Organist) wrote to college president Arthur G. Coons: "Students do most of their practice on this organ. In its present state, it is an affront to the ear, and mechanically unreliable." In February 1961, the college engaged Kenneth Simpson of Pipe Organs, Inc. to re-leather the organ; install an new chest to augment the Great; and to replace all of the existing pipe work with new pipes manufactured in Europe. The new tonal design was strongly influenced by the Neo-Baroque movement, with a focus on upperwork. The college paid $3,875 for this work, as well as an additional $300 to replace all of the manual and pedal contacts.
While the 1929 specification had eight 8' ranks split between the two manual divisions, the 1961 revision reduced that number to only two. The revised expanded the Great from only two ranks to six, with the addition of a 2' Block Flute and a III Mixture located on the new chest. The Swell received the mutations for a jeu de tierce, but seems to have lost the two reed ranks (an oboe and a vox humana) in the process. (A memo from 1962 states that this organ has one reed, despite none being listed in the rebuilding contract.)
The rebuilt organ does not seem to have been very successful and it was removed and parted out at some point in the early 1980s.