A Brief History of the Conn Company (1874-present)*

by Margaret Downie Banks, Ph.D.
Curator of Musical Instruments
National Music Museum
Vermillion, South Dakota

© Copyright 1997 by The National Music Museum.
All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, including this page and any of the separate pages, may be copied, retransmitted, reposted, duplicated or otherwise used without the express written permission of The National Music Museum.

*Excerpted and updated from Elkhart's Brass Roots: An Exhibition to Commemorate the 150th Anniversary of C. G. Conn's Birth and the 120th Anniversary of the Conn Company by Margaret Downie Banks (Vermillion, South Dakota: The Shrine to Music Museum, 1994).

Conn Pianos (1940-1969)

In an effort to establish a profitable line of keyboard instruments, the Conn company purchased the Haddorff Piano Company of Rockford, Illinois, parent company of Bush & Gerts Pianos (1940) and the Straube Piano Company of Chicago (1941). Straube production ceased in 1942, but Conn continued to oversee the manufacture of pianos in Rockford for another decade.

The company later purchased the Janssen Piano Company (1964) and pursued acoustic keyboard research under the leadership of Earle Kent. This led to the short-term production of the Conn piano. In January of 1969, Kent led a team of Conn researchers to the LTV Aerospace Laboratories in Dallas, Texas, where they utilized sophisticated, space-age equipment to gather acoustical data for future use in piano design and development. But, by the time Kent and his research team returned to Elkhart, negotiations for the sale of the Conn Company were already underway. By May, the company had been sold to Crowell-Collier MacMillan, Inc. Within seven months, the new owners phased out Kent's promising keyboard research and development department. The Conn piano line was eventually purchased (1970) by former Conn employee, Charles R. Walter, who established the Walter Piano Co. in Elkhart.

Return to Top of Text

Go to Next Text

Go to Previous Text

Return to Table of Contents

Return to Margaret Banks' Home Page

Bridge to National Music Museum

For further information, please contact:

Dr. Margaret Downie Banks, Curator of Musical Instruments
National Music Museum
The University of South Dakota
414 East Clark Street
Vermillion, SD 57069-2390

E-mail: mbanks@usd.edu

This page updated April 5, 2000.
You are the 33,249th visitor to this page.