ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

From: John Ledwon, November 2005

The organ my parents bought me when I was 14 had this console.

Richard Simonton bought the Pacific Exposition organ and it became part of his house organ. Dick modified the top to include a curved neon tube that illuminated the console very effectively.

He sold it to Alden Miller and we acquired it from Alden. We had the console for a few years and then bought an absolutely beautiful Bababan console (now in the Phoenix Orpheum Theatre) so we sold the console to Carl Mendoza. He lost the top with the neon tubing when transporting the console to his home somewhere between the Los Angeles area and Santa Barbara and, as for the console, it never reappeared. I have always wondered what became of it. It was a very nice looking slab sided console is a sort of ash finish.

I understand that Carl squirreled away a whole bunch of organ parts in many rented garages. In his later years he evidently just forgot about them and I assume that the owner of the garages just junked what was in the garages so the console probably ended up in a landfill somewhere in the Bay Area.

I assume that the chest work remained in Dick's organ until it was sold to Jack Hardman in Virginia.

This page brought to you by:
VintageHammond.Com - We Buy-Sell-Trade Vintage Hammond Organs

TheatreOrgans.com operates KEZL-FM Culbertson, NE A Non Profit Full Powered Radio Station