[12] Its offices and factory were in a three-story building at Randolph and Ann (today, Racine[13]) Streets, owned by New York financier Hetty Green[14] and familiarly known as the Coan & Ten Broek carriage-factory after a previous occupant.

[14] The Wolfinger factory made small reed organs—"cottage organs"[15]— but it also turned out furniture, sewing machine tops, elevator cabs, and more.

[18] Williard Naramore Van Matre, Sr. (1851–1939) joined as sales manager and a stockholder; he would stay for 10 years[12] before leaving to start the Straube Piano Company.

On March 12, 1886, another fire broke out in the factory at Randolph and Ann, this one gutting the building and destroying more than 2,000 organs in various states of completion.

March 18, 1855, in Cannonsville, New York, d. February 22, 1920, in Hinsdale, Illinois) and Hobart M. Cable into the business,[12] though both continued to make pianos under their own names.

[16] A serious student of music and acoustics from a young age, Conover had produced his first piano in 1875[21] and four years later opened a store with his brother George in Kansas City.

But the firm struggled, and Conover was persuaded to sell the business to Cable and sign on as its director of piano manufacturing.

[20] In January 1892, the Conover Piano Company began operating as a subsidiary with a Chicago factory at Lake and Peoria Streets.

"[16] Ten years into its independent existence, Herman Cable's company was riding a boom that would later be called the Golden Age of the Piano.

"[25] A sales catalog from the late 1890s boasted of its "three immense buildings" with more than three acres of flooring, plus smaller structures, lumber yards, and more.

"This is said to be the largest single shipment of Pianos and Organs ever made at one time and shows the rapid strides Chicago is making in the Music Industry.

"[31] The first year of the 20th century brought a new name—The Cable Company,[12] changed on March 5[33]—and a big new headquarters and showroom in Chicago's Loop area.

[37] A sales brochure issued around this time offered 29 styles of reed organ with different designs and varying numbers of stops.

The complex, at 410 South 1st Street, had its own electric plant, and its location near the Fox River and the Chicago and North Western Railroad allowed it access to materials and components from around the world.

In return, Cable distributed its pianos all over the world and had dealers in Spain, Italy, British East Africa, Japan, Australia and other key foreign places.

[1] Known for "its favorable working conditions," the factory offered employees the opportunity to "enjoy the company-sponsored brass band, choir, exercise classes, or play on the company baseball team.

[44] A week after the Mason & Hamlin purchase was inked, the company threw a banquet for its top 60 officers and branch heads ("a superb one, complete in every essential detail from blue points to cigars", the Music Trade Review reported).

Officers in attendance at the Stratford Hotel included Conover, President Shaw; Jonas M. Cleland, vice-president; H. L. Draper, secretary and treasurer; D. G. Keefe, mechanical superintendent; Frank T. Heffelfinger; Tewksbury; H. A. Ware; F. B.

The breadth of the company's sales can be seen in the list of the branches represented: Atlanta; Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio; Detroit; Jacksonville, Florida; Knoxville, Tennessee; Marinette, Wisconsin; Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Richmond, Virginia.

The first practical pianola—a piano that could use pneumatic means to play music from rolls of perforated paper—had been developed in 1895 and subsequently produced and marketed by the Aeolian Company.

Klugh held patents on the Carola and Euphona models, and at the Buffalo Convention of 1910, he would help lead the player-piano industry to standards that would allow rolls to be played on any manufacturers' instruments.

[50] By year's end, leading trade publications ranked the company among the world's top piano producers.

[6] The Music Trade Review listed the company first among leading piano manufacturers, calling it "a great institution which has exercised a potent influence on the music trade of this country" with its "immense wholesale business" and "practically twenty retail stores situated in all parts of the United States.

[54] (His fellow directors were the company president, Shaw; Heffelfinger, heir to another grain fortune; Wells; Cleland; Ware; R.E.

[60] Klugh, the player-piano expert, became vice-president and a director;[48] he would within two years debut the "Solo-Carona Inner-Player," a player piano whose novel mechanism allowed for more control of dynamics and accent.

)[65] It operated a "small goods" supply featuring musical instruments produced by the Gretsch and Martin companies.

[41] It dabbled in music publishing, issuing editions of "The One Hundred and One Best Songs"[66] in 1915 and 1922, selling thousands to school districts around the country.

Its pianos were sold by "a large number of branch houses and hundreds of agencies" including ones in "the principal cities of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia".

[85] Aeolian went bankrupt in 1984, leaving just four major piano manufacturers in the United States and bringing a final end to the company Herman Cable founded 104 years earlier.

Here are some snapshots of the company's product line at various points in its history: Chicago Cottage Organ Co. (1890–99) The Cable Co. (1900-1936) Conover-Cable Piano Co. (1945-1950) Aeolian (1950-1984) Samick (1958–present)