The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the United States.

Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success, largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S.

The company initially imported musical instruments from the Wurlitzer family in Germany for resale in the United States.

In the early 1930s, Wurlitzer built a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing and marketing facility in North Tonawanda, complete with employee recreation areas, showers and a cafeteria.

It had two landscaped avenues which fanned out over the area in front of the factory, creating a park and parkway setting off of Niagara Falls Boulevard.

The growing company held its first annual Convention of associated businesses in Buffalo, New York at the Statler Hotel in September of 1937, complete with a three day program of events and a parade.

The surviving complex, particularly the central front tower building and main entrance hall, is now a National Historic Landmark.

[6] In addition to business acquisitions, Wurlitzer entered into several joint ventures with James Armitage, George Herschell, and other businessmen from the area.

He constructed a separate plant at Goundry and Oliver Streets in downtown North Tonawanda specializing in short production runs to manufacture organs and hurdy-gurdies for amusement parks, circuses, roller rinks and carnival midways.

After the war, normal production efforts resumed but with more focus on radios, jukeboxes and small electronic organs for private homes.

The Rivera Theatre, also in North Tonawanda, possesses one of these historic organs as well as Shea's Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, New York.

Rembert Wurlitzer (1904–1963) independently directed the firm's violin department from 1949 until his death in 1963, building it into a leading international center for rare string instruments.

The former Wurlitzer complex today hosts a business park, contractors' supply store, storage, offices, restaurants and a Platter's Chocolate factory.

Wurlitzer headquarters are located in Hullhorst, and it has distribution and sales offices in Gurnee, Illinois and Oxfordshire, England.

Other brands which have been manufactured by Wurlitzer are Apollo, De Kalb, Julius Bauer, Farney, Kingston, Kurtzman, Merrium, Schaff Bros. and Underwood.

These lids are decoratively cut out to allow the sound to ring out via a large F hole, similar to a violin, as well as multiple radial slots along the outer edge.

As parts were not subject to import tariffs, almost all Wurlitzer band organs are copied from designs by European manufacturers.

The style 146 was identical copied from Brüder's model 79 fairground organ, except that the side wings (portions of the façade concealing the drums) were removed.

Wurlitzer bought de Kleist's interest in the business in 1909 and assumed operation of the North Tonawanda factory.

Some orchestrions made by the company can be found at Clark's Trading Post, Lincoln, New Hampshire, the Music Hall, Nevada City, Montana, and the Jasper Sanfilippo Collection at Victorian Palace, Barrington Hills, Illinois.

Perhaps the most famous instruments Wurlitzer built were its pipe organs (from 1914 until 1943), which were installed in theatres, homes, churches, and other venues.

The first of these theatre pipe organs to be shipped to the United Kingdom was dispatched from the North Tonawanda factory on 1 December 1924.

While Denver's is the typical "master-slave" system, Radio City is the only surviving original Wurlitzer installation to have two identical and completely independent consoles playing the same organ.

Another significant factor contributing to Wurlitzer's success was the end of Prohibition in 1933 and the resulting increase in the market for coin-operated music machines in bars and dance halls.

Wurlitzer struggled on for 20 years or so and made one final effort to keep its jukebox business viable with a nostalgic 1971 model called the "1050".

Deutsche Wurlitzer was at that time a major factor in Europe for vending machines and coin-operated phonographs, the internal word for jukeboxes.

Deutsche Wurlitzer GmbH was sold in 1985 to the Australian "Nelson Group of Companies, based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

The Australian owned German company continued to manufacture vending machines and jukeboxes and was acquired by Gibson Guitar around 2008.

Reason was, that the major shareholder of the Gibson Group would not like the German company to have the right to use the WURLITZER name and logo.

[24] Distinguishing features of the first Wurlitzer branded guitars are the W-shaped cut-out in the tremolo mounting plate and the Rock/Jazz selection rocker switch above each pick-up.