Musical marvel, stuck in El Dorado County warehouse, needs a home

In 1865, an immigrant from Goteberg, Sweden, with a grand vision for music opened a modest cabinet-making shop at 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco.

John Bergstrom wouldn’t be long known for cabinets. He became renowned as a designer and manufacturer of exquisite pipe organs. They were towering creations – virtual cathedrals of sound – that reached toward the heavens with gold-leafed hardwood and intricately stenciled and painted musical pipes.

Aided by water pressure, his organs’ sophisticated labyrinth of keys, pedals and pumps powered levers, bellows and air valves into a stirring symphony. By the mid-1880s, Bergstrom had built an estimated 66 pipe organs. His wonders of craftsmanship became musical and spiritual hearths in churches from San Francisco to British Columbia and Mexico to Hawaii.

Now volunteers are trying to find a new home for one of his last surviving creations.

For more than 50 years, a majestic pipe organ built by Bergstrom about 1885 has sat forlornly in a warehouse at the El Dorado County Fairground in Placerville. Few people get to see the 20-foot-tall marvel that occupies some 400 square feet, with its pipes nearly touching the ceiling.

The organ, sold to the Placerville Federated Church for $2,500 in 1904, is occasionally a backdrop for fairground events such as mineral and gem or home accessory shows that are held in the warehouse known as “the organ building.” Often it is merely covered by a drape.

Fair officials say the organ hasn’t had a suitable exhibit site – or perhaps even been played – since it was moved to the fairground after the Federated Church was leveled in Placerville’s historic downtown about 1960. Fair officials say the organ simply takes up too much space and they want it moved – though only after a suitable location is found.

“It’s just not serving anybody here,” said Kathy Jurgens of the El Dorado County Fair Association. “It’s just kind of sits. It’s sad, really sad.”

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