New Colonial Theatre

AndrewBarrett on December 21, 2015 at 11:05 pm

According to “The Encylopedia of the American Theatre Organ” by Mr. David L. Junchen, pg. 630, the “Colonial Th.” in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania had a Smith theatre pipe organ made by the Smith Unit Organ Co. of North Tonawanda, New York, and installed in 1916. This organ had Kinetic blower serial #E214, which was 1 horsepower and delivered wind at 10" static pressure. Mr. Junchen does not list the number of manuals or number of ranks of the organ in his book, since they were not known to him at the time of publication.

Does anyone know what happened to this organ, and where it, or its parts, are today?

Its existence today seems unlikely, given how the theatre was demolished in 1930 to make way for a new theatre, but during the depression and even before (during the early advent of talking pictures), many theatres sold their organs to poor churches who needed an organ for their services and could only afford one that was secondhand.

Thus, there’s a chance this organ survived in a second life as a church organ somewhere.

At least, I would love to have some photos of the organ and some more information about it, such as (at least) the number of manuals/keyboards in the organ console, and the number of pipe ranks it had.

Thanks a lot!
-Andrew

P. S. the Smith and Geneva Pipe Organs history group is on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/104769223198776/