Sacramento Estey

The 4/48 Estey in Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento, CA

For more current pictures, a stop list, and other information go to the web page for the Sierra Chapter of the ATOS, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Organs, then click on 4/48 Estey.

The instrument had not been played in years and was brought back to life through the efforts of many local people with Rich LeVoie leading the effort. I was present the day they had an electrician come in and get power to the organ and turn it on for the first time in many years. I don't remember the year, but it was in the early/mid 1990's. Needless to say it was in dire need of tuning, but after exercising the push buttons on the "cash register" console and the keyboards for a while, it still put out a mighty roar. After much work was done on it (and more is still needed) it was in good enough shape to be heard by the public, the first time in 22 years, on Saturday, May 17, 1997.. I don't know what the current state of it is or the city's outlook for it. The Friends of Sacramento Memorial Auditorium are responsible for saving the organ and the building from some very misguided plans of chopping up the inside of the auditorium.

The following are pictures I took that day when the organ was brought back to life. The console is on a lift which takes it from the basement up to stage level. Also note in the stop lists on the web site mentioned above, the "Solo to Choir 2nd Touch".

If you click on the thumbnails, you will get a photo sized picture. The photo sized pictures are JPG files between 25k and 35k in size. If you click on "Full Sized" next to the thumbnail, you will get the initially scanned photo in JPG at 300 dpi. The size of the file is part of the name. The scans were done using Adobe Photoshop Ver 7. I do have the original scans and they are about 6.1 meg each. I did not put them on the web site because there are 17 images and I am using dial up at 56 kbs (actually 45.3 kbs). It would take a VERY long time do load 103 meg at my connect speed..

The Sacramento Memorial Auditorium