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Queen Anne High School - 3/13 Kimball
Seattle, WA
215 Galer Street
Organ installation timeframe: 1953 - 1981
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Queen Anne High School was one of the last creations of James Stephen during his nine years as Seattle's official school architect. Stephen was responsible for designing more than 50 Seattle school structures and many more schools throughout Washington state. One,
Everett High School, was built at the same time as Queen Anne High and resembles it.
In 1953, a 2/9 Kimball theatre pipe organ (opus #6760) originally from Everett's
New Everett Theatre was installed in the school's 1,400 seat auditorium at a cost of $10,000. It was fitted with a three-manual classical style console. The original 2-manual console is now owned by an individual in Sydney, Australia.
The story of this unique installation was reported by the late Emery Gustafson (a 1936 graduate of Queen Anne High) several years ago... It seems that Principal Otto Luther had a slush fund of several thousand dollars, built up from money left over from gifts of graduating classes. When Luther retired in 1951, George Farmer inherited the fund, but the school board also learned of it and told him he had to spend it for the school or turn it over to the district. The pipe organ proposal fit the ticket and beat out other ideas for use of the money, and thus Queen Anne became home to this unique musical instrument.
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PSTOS presented several concerts for students at the school in the late 1960's, Most notably, Dick Schrum, Jonas Nordwall and Tony Fenelon. The hope was to establish a working club within the school that would produce silent movie programs and concerts while also providing support for student organists. |
Tony Fenelon, c. 1969 |
Unfortunately, the school was closed permanently in 1981 and the classical brick-and-tile
structure was converted to apartments. The Kimball pipe organ was removed and after some
time in storage (where it sustained considerable water damage), the instrument was rebuilt
and re-installed in the auditorium at Franklin High School.
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Seattle School May Close; Has Former Theatre Kimball in Hall
Excerpt from The Console magazine, December 1980 (v18, No 12, pp18):
Queen Anne High School in Seattle may close in June and this clouds the future of its three-manual
Kimball organ, formerly installed in the Everett Theatre in Seattle. Puget Sound Chapter ATOS has
offered to put the organ in concert codition [sp] if it can be used during the coming 1981 national
convention July 1 through 5.
The organ was built in 1926 and moved to the high school in the mid 50's when it was purchased by the
school. Cost to the School was about $18,000, including the three-manual console built by Balcom &
Vaughan Pipe Organs. By the early 70s the organ fell into disrepair, but later was brought back to
playable condition by students.
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c.1971
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