February 2002 Issue - Gibson's Kalamazoo Factory, Original Home of the Flying V and Les Paul Model
By Larry Meiners
Orville Gibson started building musical instruments in 1894 with a few tools, a great feel for wood and a vision for instruments of the future. Like many fine builders at the time, he built violins. With the popularity of guitars and mandolins on the rise in the USA, Orville applied his violin making expertise to the art of building these other stringed instruments.
With his instruments selling well, Orville needed more space than the small building on Harrison Court in Kalamazoo, Michigan provided. By 1917, Gibson built a large three-story factory at 225 W. Parsons Street. Consumer demand for Gibson's fine instruments required five additions to the original plant. These additions were completed in 1918, 1935, 1945, 1950 and a mega-expansion in 1960 that doubled the size of the factory to 120,000 square feet. By the time the 1960 expansion was completed, the baby-boomer period changed the market demand for almost all consumer products and Gibson was no exception. During the early 1960s, Gibson was producing over 200 various products that also included guitars, basses, amplifiers and strings.
Ted McCarty became President of Gibson in 1948 and he managed the company during the 1950 and 1960 plant expansions. Ted's legacy would include guiding Gibson through their finest period of innovation of electric guitars and their peak production of 115,000 instruments in 1965. Ted also designed some of Gibson's most popular models and components. At the top of the market cycle that peaked in 1966, Ted left Gibson to run the Bigsby Company. Bigsby's extraordinary vibrato tailpiece could be found on many Gibson and Gretsch guitars at the time and was used by many well-known guitar players like Chet Atkins and Lonnie Mack. Six of Gibson's top 10 selling instruments produced through 1979 were created while Ted was President. Ted participated in the creative process for many classic instrument designs, including the Les Paul Model, Flying V, Explorer, ES-335/ES-345/ES-355 Series, Firebird Models, Thunderbird Models, the PAF Pickup and the Tune-O-Matic Bridge, among others.
For more information regarding Gibson instrument shipments by year and model and to help determine which instruments are rare, check out the Gibson Shipment Totals 1937-1979 book available at JK Lutherie, call toll-free at 1-800-344-8880, or on the web at www.jklutherie.com.
2002 © Larry Meiners All Rights Reserved