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.
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pages, may be copied, retransmitted, reposted, duplicated or otherwise
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*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).
Left: Advertisement for Conn's "rain-catcher" sousaphone, invented
in 1898.
From a catalog in the Conn
Archives at the National Music Museum. Right: Conn Company signature engraved on one
of the bells of a custom-made
echo horn, ca. 1897,
in the Museum's collections (catalog no. 2484). Instruments made between
1897-1902 usually bear both the Elkhart, Indiana, and New York
factory designations, as seen here. Photograph by Simon R. H.
Spicer.
© Copyright 1997 by The National Music Museum.
Conn's Worcester operation was phased out
by 1898. In its place, ex-Congressman Conn put his efforts into
establishing a retail store in New York City (October 1897) for the sale of
his Wonder line of instruments, as well as his inventory of fine violins.
Instruments sold at this outlet bore both the Elkhart and New York
designations for about five years. However, following a relocation of the
store in 1902, this practice was discontinued. Conn also purchased a New
York-based mandolin factory in 1897, moving the operation back to Elkhart
to complement his new Wonder violin manufacturing department.
Not willing to fall behind the latest developments in the new
recording industry, Conn added the Wonder talking machine to his inventory
(1897) for a short time. The following year, Conn employee Ted Pounder made
history by developing the first commercially available bell-up "rain-catcher"
sousaphone. Patents for the Wonder portable reed organ and new Conn-Queror
cornet were granted in 1901.
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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.
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