ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From: Grahame Davis, November 2008
.....there was an old Hilgreen and Lane "theatre" pipe organ in one of two theatres in the City of ABQ.
The Kimo which was the smaller house.....had a two manual Wurlitzer of I think ....7 ranks........it
has long since been removed.
The other house was the theatre with the Hilgreen Lane organ.
Sometime before the second world war, this organ was moved to the Pearson Auditorium at the
New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. Bill Brown was a cadet at that institution as
was Phil Maloof's talented brother George. Bill played the organ for school functions while he was
there and after graduating.....was sent to Japan briefly right at the end of the war.
Years went by and Bill kept in touch with his Alma Mater and with the old technician who looked after
the Hilgreen organ......Alva Wilson. I don't think Alva was related to Clark........!!
Ultimately.....to keep a long story short......he secured the 260 console from Sandy Fleet's home organ
in San Diego and I restored that console for the NMMI organ project which Bill paid for and headed up.
We rebuilt some Wurlitzer chests and the usual parts....regs, trems etc. and took everything to Roswell
over two summers in the mid 80s....long before the flying saucer craze which has since put Roswell on the map!
The console had air in it and.....we restored the original relay which came with that console.
This console played the Phoenix pizza parlor organ for about nine months or so while I restored
the 4 manual console complete with the pneumatic systems intact.
Lyn Larsen consulted with Bill Brown on the NMMI specification and played the dedication concert.
Lyn and I worked together on the tonal finishing and several well known players have performed on
the organ at the Auditorium.
I'm not sure but I think Bill paid for a new Uniflex relay system in the 90s and the console might
have been electrocuted but I'm not clear about that. I was not involved in the organ at all once the
initial installation was complete. I believe that Ed Zollman now looks after the organ and attends to its maintenance.
The Pearson Auditorium is as close as you can get to being a small theatre. It seats about 1000.....and it has a balcony. The organ sounds good in the room since it has some acoustical ambience.
The school is a fine example of the Military Institute system and has beautiful grounds.
Working there for those two summers was very much fun as the commanding General allowed us to
use the Olympic sized swimming pool and other fine facilities on the campus.