The original Wurlitzer pipe organ has returned to the Fox

Many Huerfano residents may remember good times at the movies when the organ, with all its different instrumental sounds, delighted them.

The Fox used the Wurlitzer Hope-Jones pipe organ until the late 1950s, when it was moved and became a choir organ at St. Mary Catholic Church. St. Mary removed the non-choir features, but the pastor kept all the valuable unused equipment intact and saved it for the next person to use. Over time it came into disuse and was abandoned in the choir stall.

“Nobody knew how to fix it, and no one wanted to damage it,” said George Birrer.

In 2005, the treasure was rediscovered and revived. Birrer brought it back to the Fox Theatre, and volunteers from the Pikes Peak Area Theatre Organ Society stepped forward to restore the organ — a charitable labor of love.

Having traveled full circle in fifty years, the original Wurlitzer is back at the Fox Theatre Walsenburg — sparkling fresh and ready to enchant again in the building where Paul Krier first installed it in 1923.

For the full story of Jewel Geiger, Robert Hope-Jones, and why this dual-keyboard instrument is so rare, see our World Journal reprint from 2011.