ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

From: Larry Chace, May 1999

In 1917, Wurlitzer installed its opus 140 in the new California Theatre in San Francisco. This instrument was their showpiece on the West Coast and later became the model for their Style 285, the nominal 32-rank 4-manual largest standard model. When the theatre was torn down in 1961, the organ was removed and its parts dispersed, except for the 32' Diaphone and a few other parts that went down with the building. The massive (and noisy) 25hp Orgoblo was salvaged from a dump several years later by Ed Stout.

The instrument was installed in 5 chambers. The Main and Solo occupied the standard positions to the left and right of the stage, with the Foundation and Tuba from left to right above the proscenium and the Echo above the center dome. The 32' Diaphone pipes were mounted vertically above the Solo chamber.

As was typical for early large Wurlitzers, the Echo and Solo divisions were straight; the Echo played from the Great manual and the Solo manual had only 37 notes, starting at tenor C (it probably had 49 pipes per rank, but that doesn't show up on the specification as published in the October 1974 issue of "Console" magazine). A short-compass Solo was also used in opus 88, a 4/28 for the Covent Garden Theatre in Chicago, built in 1916.

This instrument was an enlarged version of Wurlitzer's previously largest theatre organ, opus 64 for the Isis Theatre in Denver, Colorado. Opus 140 got the additions of a 16' English Horn (a Post Horn, not a Cor Anglais), a 16' Solo String, a 4' Harmonic Flute, and an 8' Gamba Celeste in the Echo. In addition, the 32' Diaphone was enlarged from 28" to 32" (inside). The instrument cost $45,000 (real 1917 dollars!). (Opus 64 had a full-compass Solo, however.)

As you can see from the attached rank list and stop list, this instrument was not heavily unified.

	MAIN CHAMBER	Pedal	Acc	Great	Bombarde	Solo
16	Tuba Horn	16,8	8	16,8,4
8	Open Diapason	8	8	8
8	Horn Diapason	16	8,4	8,4
8	Saxophone		8	8
16	Clarinet	16	8	16,8
8	Viol d'Orchestre	8	16,8,4	16,8,4,2
8	Viol Celeste	8	8,4	8,4
8	Krumet		8	16,8
8	Salicional		8	8
8	Concert Flute	8	8,4,3,2	8,4,3,2,T
	FOUNDATION CHAMBER
32	Diaphonic Diapason	32,16,8		8	16,8
16	Tibia Clausa	16,8	8	8	16,8,4
16	Solo String	16,8		8	16,8
8	Gamba		8	8	8
8	Gamba Celeste		8	8	8
4	Harmonic Flute		4	4	4
	TUBA CHAMBER
16	Tuba Mirabilis	16,8,4		8	16,8,4
16	English Horn	16,8		8	16,8
8	Vox Humana		8	8,4	8

	SOLO CHAMBER

8	Tibia Clausa					8
8	Trumpet					8
8	Orchestral Oboe					8
8	Kinura					8
8	Oboe Horn					8
8	Quintadena					8
	Xylophone
	Glockenspiel
	Sleigh Bells
	Bells
	ECHO CHAMBER
16	Bourdon	16
8	Horn Diapason			8
8	Gamba			8
8	Gamba Celeste			8
8	Oboe Horn			8
8	Vox Humana			8
4	Flute			8
	Cathedral Chimes

EXTRAS,

Couplers:	Gt/Ped, Bom/Ped, Echo/Ped
	Solo/Acc, Solo/Acc 2nd, Solo/Acc Pizz.,
	Solo/Gt, Solo/Gt 2nd, Solo/Gt Pizz.,
	Bom/Bom 16 2nd, Gt/Bom, Gt/Bom 4, Solo/Bom

Pedal 2nd touch: 32 Diaphone
Pedal Pizzacato: 16 Tuba Horn
Acc 2nd touch: 8 Tuba Horn, 8 Diaphone, 8 TIbia Clausa
Great 2nd touch: 16 Tuba Horn, 8 Tuba Mirabilis
Thunder pedals for 32 Diaphone, 16 Reed, 16 Tibia
6 Tremulants, 3 bird effects, other percussions

(Originally posted to PIPORG-L on 17 Aug 94. Modified with additions from volume 3 of the "Encyclopedia", page 343)

From: Dave Schutt, Aug. 1994

I heard the organ once--there was a church meeting in there near the demise of the building. The foundation and brass chambers had enormous sets of swell shades--the whole wall seemed to open up. In its prime, I'm sure the organ must have been very spectacular. In 1917, about the only other big organ in a San Francisco theater was the very strange Robert Morton (or one of its predecessors) in the Tivoli.

In 1961, several of us bought the organ ($400, as I recall) and worked harder than I have ever worked before or since to get it out in just a few days. The ranks in the Foundation chamber were all on one BIG 9-rank chest--and it had the 8' octaves on the manual chest! We just didn't have any more energy to get the 32' diaphones. Ed Stout has pictures of the building coming down with the diaphones inside.

Some of the pipes were long gone from the organ: posthorn and brass in particular. Ron Downer has several of the ranks in the organ he has at home in San Francisco. Others involved with the purchase and removal were Bob Denny, Marion Riffle, Bill Galt and Packard Polin.

The console is on the organ in Ruth Dresser's house in Malibu, California.

From: Al Sefl, Sep 2002

The 32' octave was lost when the demolition contractor would not let the removal crew (Ron Downer & Charlie Hershmann + other unnamed individuals) take them out past a deadline. These were scaled with a 42" opening on CCCC and it would make Market Street outside shake when they were used. Shook up a lot of '06 Quake survivors so the ventil switch was mostly on to keep them off!

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