Paperwork History of Laura Evens'
Wurlitzer Style 30-A Mandolin PianOrchestra

(Photograph courtesy of Q. David Bowers)

Knight-Campbell Music Company receipt to Laura Evans (sic) for Wurlitzer #3750, a Style 30-A Mandolin PianOrchestra. The invoice is marked paid as of January 4, 1914, by C. R. Baker, Treasurer of the Company. The price paid was $3150.00.

The invoice notes that The Knight-Campbell Music Company was established in 1874, and the company offered Pianos, Player Pianos, Talking Machines, Everything Musical. The address was 1625-1631 California Street, Denver, Colorado.

(Photograph courtesy of Q. David Bowers)

Business card for S. L. Sausa, Piano Tuner and Player Piano Repairing, Canon City, Colorado. This card was found in the 30-A PianOrchestra. Scribbled across the left side of the card is the handwritten date of April 18, 1917. What this date represents is unknown, but it is probably safe to say that about this time Mr. Sousa tuned and probably made some repairs to the Wurlitzer PianOrchestra during a visit to the Evens establishment.

According to Art Reblitz: The Sausa brothers provided service for Wurlitzer and other orchestrions in Colorado from the original era at least through the 1950s. I found a business card for S.L. Sausa inside the roll changer shutoff pump pneumatic in the Wurlitzer CX Orchestra Piano at Ghost Town museum in Colorado Springs when I restored it in 1971. He had repaired it for its prior owner in Denver before the owners of Ghost Town acquired it. His brother I.C. Sausa continued to service Wurlitzer and other instruments as a lifelong career. When Dana Johnson introduced me to I.C. Sausa in 1972, he was in his 90s and wasn’t working any more, but he still had a large number of Wurlitzer and American Fotoplayer parts. S.L. Sausa had died years earlier, but I don’t know when. The two brothers moved from New York.City to Denver and built a home there in 1912, but they worked all over the state. I.C. Sausa told me he serviced Wurlitzer orchestrions in Leadville, among other places.

(Photograph courtesy of Q. David Bowers)

Knight-Campbell Music Company Player Roll Dept. receipt made out to Laura Evans (sic), Salida, Colorado. It is dated 10/14/1918, and it is for the purchase of two music rolls, #873 and #876, both for $4.75, for a total of $9.50. The carbon print-through for this duplicate receipt is exceptionally difficult to read, it being very faded and dim. However, with some forensics work the writing in the bottom portion of the receipt is thought to read: "Other selections will follow in a few days. Thank you for your order. Letter will follow."

The music rolls were sent by Express, which in 1918 probably meant by the Railway Express Agency (REA), established circa 1917. That music rolls were apparently ordered by letter and then dispatched by Express suggests that Laura Evens had some sort of an account arrangement with the Knight-Campbell Music Company, and regularly ordered PianOrchestra rolls without ever actually visiting the Company's Denver, Colorado, showrooms.

(Photograph courtesy of Q. David Bowers)

The Palace Hotel
Mr. and Mrs. F. Egender, Props.
One block from Depot
Salida, Colorado
Steam Heat, Hot and Cold Water in All Rooms
European -- Free Sample Room

Laura Evens' two story Parlor building was at the corner of Front (now shown as Sackett Avenue) and "G" Streets. The Palace Hotel was (and still is) located across the street and on the opposite corner, literally next door to Laura's "cribs" building, a single story building directly across the street from Laura's main Parlor building.

This March 15, 1924, Time and Materials, Hotel, Railroad, and Repairs on Wurlitzer Orchestrion for Laura Evans (sic) bill in the amount of $234.68 was for work done on the 30A PianOrchestra. The bill covers twelve days of repair work and servicing at $15.00 per day. The repairman had but a short (and probably brisk) one block walk to and from the hotel to Laura's Parlor.

The repairman traveled from Denver, Colorado, by railroad. Exactly who the repairman was in this instance is unknown, but it could have been one of the Sousa brothers, or perhaps Fred Meunier, a former Knight-Campbell technician who helped install the giant Wurlitzer organ in the Denver Municipal Auditorium in 1918, and who regularly serviced band organs and orchestrions as well as the major pipe organs in the area. The Knight-Campbell Music Company was a Wurlitzer distributor and major music house in Denver, and it was the very company that had sold the Wurlitzer PianOrchestra to Laura Evens in January of 1914.