Murray M. Harris returned in 1894 from his Boston apprenticeship with organ builder George S. Hutchings to a booming Los Angeles where only eight pipe organs existed. Six years later, Los Angeles would have 154 churches in it and scores of new pipe organs. Harris and organ tuner Henry C. Fletcher became business partners and founded the city’s first organ building firm, Fletcher & Harris. Several new firms sprang from this beginning and many more than 100 organs were built by 1913, including the world’s largest for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (better known as the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair). That organ would become Philadelphia’s famous Wanamaker Organ after Alexandre Guilmant had played 40 recitals on it at the Fair, repeating no pieces. The book includes an annotated opus list, listings of organ builders from the Los Angeles City Directories, many stop lists, photographs and technical details. 

OHS Press, 65 pgs, soft cover