Kilgen

Kilgen was a prominent American builder of organs which was in business from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century.

The Kilgen family's history of organ making supposedly dates to the 17th century, when Sebastian Kilgen, a French Huguenot, fled France and took refuge in a German monastery near Durlach. There he learned organ building from the monks, and built his first organ in 1640. Succeeding generations of Kilgens remained in Durlach and carried on organ building as a family trade.

George Kilgen was born in Merchingen, Germany in 1821 and apprenticed to the organ builder Louis Voit in Durlach. In 1840, he emigrated to the United States for political reasons and was employed with the Jardine organ company in New York City. He founded his own company there in 1851, and in 1873 relocated to St. Louis, where his company became one of the principal suppliers of church organs to the Midwestern United States.

George Kilgen's son Charles (1859-1932) was made partner in 1885, and the business was renamed George Kilgen and Son. By the turn of the century, Kilgen and Son had grown to be the largest and most well-known organ company in St. Louis. George Kilgen died in 1902, and Charles Kilgen took over the company and headed it during its most productive years. In 1909, Charles Kilgen purchased the Pfeffer Organ Co. and added it to the company's assets. An organ manufactured and installed in 1916 By Geo. Kilgen and son was installed at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Douglas Arizona. It is a tubular-pneumatic organ and is still in use to this day.

George Kilgen had another son named Henry C. Kilgen (1851-1918). The March 3, 1894 edition of Music Trade Review identified that Charles O. Kilgen, Henry Kilgen and George J. Kilgen organized the Kilgen Church Organ Company in Chicago, Illinois, with capital of $3,700. Up until this time, it appears Henry Kilgen had been operating independently, having established his own firm in St. Louis, Missouri in the early 1870s. Examples of his work can be found in Saint Augustine's Cultural Center (formerly Saint Augustine's Catholic Church) in Austin, Nevada and St. Patrick's Catholic Church (Toledo, Ohio). Henry Kilgen died on July 29, 1918. His death certificate identified him as employed at the time by Kilgen and Son of St. Louis, Missouri.

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