Charles Gerard Conn did not start the first American musical instrument manufacturing company, but his is the oldest still extant. In the 19^thcentury when an instrument maker retired and sold his business, the new owner gave it his own name. When Conn sold his business in 1915, the new owner kept the Conn name.

Therefore, Conn musical instruments have had a dominant presence in American music for more than a century, and worldwide for more than half a century. 

C.G. Conn biography

C.G. Conn was born in upstate New York in 1844 to a young farming couple, but his parents decided to move west. They settled in Elkhart, Indiana in 1851. The elder Conn became superintendent of schools in the village but later ran a grocery business.

When the Civil War broke out, the younger Conn volunteered for service in the army and served in an Indiana regimental band as a cornet player. Three years later, he had achieved the rank of captain and a reputation for bravery. Years later, he founded what became the Indiana National Guard and became known as Col. Conn.

After the war, he returned to Elkhart and worked in his father’s grocery store. He also learned to make rubber stamps and to plate and engrave silverware. It also appears that he started and sold an ice company.

Conn continued musical activities as a member of the Elkhart Silver Cornet Band. A fight with another band member left him with a severely lacerated lip that threatened to end his ability to play. Instead, he used his rubber-making and silver-plating skills to design a rubber-rimmed mouthpiece.

Other members of the band took an interest in the new mouthpiece, and he began to manufacture it for sale in 1873. Then he started to make entire instruments and took out several patents for improved design. Soon enough, he had to hire more workers and gave up other employment to devote full time to his new company.

That’s not to say that he gave up other interests. In 1880, Conn, a Democrat in a heavily Republican part of Indiana, became Elkhart’s mayor and the first Elkhart mayor to achieve reelection. He later served both in the state legislature and in Congress. Along the way, he also founded and ran the Elkhart Truth, still the city’s leading newspaper.

C.G. Conn grows his company

Conn started his business on the second floor of a rented building. He had three employees.

In 1875, French brass instrument maker Eugene Dupont visited Conn’s factory and entered into a partnership with him that endured for three years.

The two purchased a three-story building previously used to manufacture furniture in 1876 and added on to it two years later.

It burned to the ground on Conn’s 39^thbirthday, January 29, 1883. By that time, it employed 60 workers. Conn, in his second term as mayor, had to resign his office to attend to the rebuilding. He had a new and larger factory operating on the same site within two months.

At the same time, he had a desire to expand operations beyond Elkhart. When Isaac Fiske, an instrument maker in Worcester, Massachusetts, decided to retire, Conn bought him out and operated this second factory for eleven years. He also opened a retail shop in New York City.

Elkhart remained Conn’s major base of operations. His success inspired a number of his employees to establish their own companies in Elkhart.

F.A. Buescher founded the earliest of these, the Buescher Band Instrument Company, in 1895. The Martin Band Instrument Company, the Blessing Band Instrument Company, C.W. Osgood, and the Pedler Company all began to make instruments in Elkhart over the next 20 years.

Conn’s partnership with Dupont had resulted in the recruitment of other French craftsmen. In recruiting the German Buscher, Conn gained expertise in a second national style of instrument design. J.H. Martin, another German maker, also worked for Conn for a while. Conn also hired English makers. With his international workforce, he was able to design new instruments based on the best features of each of the various European designs.

The end of C.G. Conn’s personal management

The Conn factory burned down again in 1910 when Conn was out of town. When he returned, nearly 5,000 townspeople met him at the train station in a spontaneous show of support. Once again, he rebuilt quickly, but by that time, he was 66 years old. The heyday of the town band was beginning to fade.

Conn had already started to pull away from daily operations of his company. He traveled widely, spent money beyond his income on yachts and artwork. He became involved in other business activities, which failed.

As sole proprietor of a million-dollar business, he could demand money from the company any time he wanted it. Eventually, the firm’s credit rating began to suffer. In 1915, he decided to sell the company and asked an Elkhart promoter to find a buyer. Carl Diamond Greenleaf, who operated a flour mill in Wauseon, Ohio, purchased C.G. Conn & Company for $400,000.

Greenleaf knew nothing about musical instruments at the time, but he understood sound business principles. He immediately incorporated the company as C.G. Conn Ltd. It thrived under his leadership.

Conn, meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles. He published a book on how to achieve success in 1923 but had long since stopped living according to its principles. When he died in 1931, he didn’t have enough money to buy a grave marker. Workers at the Conn factory paid for a handsome one.

C.G. Conn’s business practices

Labor relations were one of Conn’s chief interests as a member of the Indiana legislature. Not surprising, then, he welcomed labor unions and operated a fully unionized shop. He also offered profit sharing.

Like much of the musical instrument business before and since Conn relied heavily on endorsements of professional musicians. He gave professional musicians a 20% discount. Sometimes he gave them instruments as a gift or even paid especially prominent ones to play his instruments.

He eventually issued a magazine he called C.G. Conn’s Truth, or later, Musical Truth. It included news of the musical world, descriptions of innovations in instrument design, sometimes harsh criticism of rival companies, and, of course, testimonials from the most famous band-instrument players of the day.

At least once, he reached even higher. In 1905, he published a portrait of Conn and John Philip Sousa with King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of England. The caption read, “Three Kings and a Queen: King and Queen of England, ‘March King,’ and the King of Instrument Makers.”

Every season, Conn gave a band named Hi Henry’s Minstrels a free set of gold-plated Conn instruments. In return, the band’s leader promoted the instruments. He even requested a police guard in every city where the band marched in a parade. After all, he always said, his band’s instruments were so valuable that bandits might be tempted to steal them out of player’s hands without good protection!

When John Philip Sousa established his own band, every metal instrument was made by Conn. His first European tour demonstrated the excellence of American-made instruments.

As part of his promotional effort, Conn established the Conn Conservatory of Music to attract more and more musicians to Elkhart and to associate Elkhart with musical instruments.

Sources:

Banks, Margaret Downie, and James W. Jordan. “C.G. Conn: the man (1844-1931) and his company.” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 14 (1988): 61-113.
Reed, Charles Vandeveer. “A history of band instrument manufacturing in Elkhart, Indiana.” M.S. thesis, College of Business Administration, Butler University, 1953. Available online at https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1412&context=grtheses

Photo credits:
Portrait of C.G. Conn and grave marker found at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7779006/charles-gerard-conn
Conn’s original factory. Photo from the Elkhart Historical Society. found at http://tubapastor.blogspot.com/2016/02/
Brochure cover. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons