Bartola Musical Instrument Company

The Bartola Musical Instrument Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, United States, was a producer of theater pipe organs during the age of silent movies.

"[1] For this reason, the instruments were almost unknown outside of this relatively small area until later years, long after manufacture had ceased, when many were moved from their original homes into venues around the United States.

[2] Barton's first successful experiment in producing equipment to accompany silent films was a set of electrically operated bells that formed a musical scale.

After seeing the highly enthusiastic reception of his invention, Barton began toying with the idea of a more elaborate mechanism employing additional percussion instruments and organ pipes.

Like other photoplayers, the Bartola was designed around an upright piano, and consisted of several ranks of organ pipes and various percussion instruments and sound effects housed in a case, all installed in the theatre's orchestra pit.

Originally developed by Robert Hope-Jones and marketed as the "Wurlitzer-Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra" by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of North Tonawanda, New York, it was designed specifically to meet the entertainment needs of theatres (most importantly the accompaniment of silent film).

Wurlitzer was, in addition to being its inventor, the largest manufacturer of theatre organs by a considerable margin, so it is inevitable that Barton's products would be compared to that standard.

This increased demand necessitated the outsourcing of some components—a practice common among theatre organ manufacturers at the time—and materials from component suppliers such as Dennison, Gottfried, Meyer, Wangerin, and Geneva have been identified within extant instruments.

The organ was installed in the center ceiling, and had 51 ranks of pipes of massive scale as well as the usual percussion, traps, and effects.

The organ was powered by an immense 100 HP Spencer blower, and the sound of the organ (in the words of the reviewer of Marcel Dupré's 1929 dedicatory recital) was immense: "...It was as if even the most ardent lover of chocolate soda were hurled into a swimming pool filled with it..." In a probably apocryphal story, long-time stadium organist Al Melgard was reputed to have broken windows and light bulbs while executing a fortississimo rendition of the National Anthem, to quell a riot that had erupted at a boxing match.

Unfortunately much of the organ was destroyed in storage by fire in October 1996, although the huge, one-of-a-kind console, which had been stored elsewhere, was saved, and is now in a private collection in Nevada.