The company is known for manufacturing pianos under the brand names of Starr, Trayser, Duchess, Richmond, Remington, and Royal.

[1] In the 1880s Chase moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to establish his own piano factory, leaving the Richmond operation to be renamed James Starr and Company, with James Starr as president and his brother Benjamin the manager.

[1] Two employees of that company, John Lumsden and his son-in-law Henry Gennett, pursued a merger with Starr in 1892 which took place during the following year.

[1] Between 1893 and 1949 Starr produced nearly a dozen brands, including Trayser, Duchess, Richmond, Remington, and Royal, and bought other piano companies like Krell in 1927.

[1] The company had a showroom inside the Nashville Jesse French Piano Building at 240-242 Fifth Street North.

The Starr phonograph had a slight success at first for a minor brand, due in part to winning an award at the 1915 Panama–California Exposition.

[10] In late 1914 or early 1915, Starr began issuing records pressed from Phono-Cut masters, under a label named Remington.

Beginning in late 1917, into early 1918, the label's name was changed to Gennett to allow non-Starr piano dealers to sell their records.

[12] At the height of the Starr's manufacturing, they made 25,000 pianos, 15,000 phonographs, and over 4 million records annually.

[14] With the stock market crash, Starr was only one of a handful of independent piano makers that wasn't absorbed into the massive Aeolian-American Corporation.

In 1952, the Starr name along with its factory was sold to the J. Solotken Company, a scrap metal and paper salvager from Indianapolis.

Today the Starr Piano Company Warehouse and Administration Building is used as a park and event venue along with the Gennett Walk of Fame, noting some of the famous artists who recorded there.