Innovations were happening very quickly and the competitive edge could come and go in the blink of an eye. The newly establishedĮlectronic organ business was very competitive. In the late '40s through the early '50s the company's quality control specialist Bill Johnson, (no relation), played a Minshall organ at Howard Johnson's on Friday and Saturday evenings to entertain the Putney Road patrons.Ī year after the company opened, it finally established a working assembly line, which sped up production. Burton Minshall donated an organ to the newly opened Marlboro College to help begin the school's music program. The Advent Christian Church on Cottage Street installed one of the electronic reed organs as well. A Minshall-Estey organ was donated to the West Brattleboro Baptist Church. The sounds simulated pipe organ tones without the space usually required for such an instrument. He claimed the instruments were perfect for churches unable to afford pipe organs. Orders began to come in and more pressure was put on the company to get a successful production line up and running.īurton Minshall began marketing the organs to churches, auditoriums and funeral homes. Luckily, Minshall shipped one of the first organs to the Navy and it appreciated how a small reed organ could make such a large, pipe organ sound. In the first four months the company produced five organs total, not the 80 or more as predicted. World War II demands meant electronic component purchases for private businesses were very limited. News reports at the time quoted Minshall as saying the plant would make 20 organs a month.
Based upon Minshall's plans, the joint venture began using electronic pickups and amplifiers to enhance the sound of Estey's modified reed organs.ĭuring that first winter, production plans were ambitious. Minshall-Estey started operations in Estey shop building #5. It was a solid collaboration as a post-war economy seemed hovering on the horizon.īurton Minshall and his family moved to Brattleboro in 1944. While visiting a trade show in Montreal, Burton Minshall met Jacob "Jay" Estey and the result of the meeting was the creation of the Minshall Estey Corporation in June 1944. partner could provide reed organs capable of easy modification. The Minshalls figured they would provide the electronic components while a U.S. They sold well and the Minshalls looked to expand to the United States. Minshall marketed the modified organ to funeral homes and small churches in Canada and met with success.ĭuring the early 1940s Minshall produced kits for hobbyists to assemble electronic reed organs and continued to produce his own modified organs.
They brought a modified reed organ to a local church to see if there was interest in such an instrument and the church placed the first order for a Minshall organ. Burton and Maddie both liked the results and saw a business opportunity. His wife, Maddie, was a pianist and she asked her husband to modify an old reed organ so it would produce sounds closer to a larger, more powerful pipe organ. BRATTLEBORO - In the 1930s Burton Minshall was a radio repairman in Ontario, Canada.