Clearing the burned out wreckage of the Dobson Pipe Organ building after fire. (Dobson FB photo)
A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled on July 5th in Lake City for a new facility at the site where the Dobson Pipe Organ shop burned to the ground two years ago.
John Panning has been with the company since 1984 and took over as president in early 2020. “We’ve had really a blessing of being able to stay in Lake City in temporary buildings thanks to the generosity of a number of local business people but who made their buildings available to us, but it’s still not the same as being under one roof in the same building,” Panning says, “so we’re really excited about the possibility of having this new space.”
Dobson Pipe Organ Builders installs organs throughout the country and around the world. Panning says it might have been easier to reopen in a more urban area after the fire, but Panning made the decision to stay in northwest Iowa.
“”About three-quarters of our crew really wanted to stay in Lake City,” Panning says. “They’ve got family, deep roots, grandkids, so we don’t have a business if we don’t have our craftspeople, so we’re in Lake City and we’re happy about it.”
The building was not the only thing destroyed by the fire two years ago. About 20 percent of Dobson’s 99th organ was in the shop when it burned, so crews in Lake City started all over on the instrument, which will be installed in St. James Church in Sydney, Australia.
“At this point, we’re kind of winding down on it,” Panning says. “We’re setting up the last parts of the organ. It’s going to be all taken down and stained and packed in shipping containers. It’ll actually have to be shipped on a boat, so we’re going to start the installation of that organ in January and it should be finished in June of next year.”
Dobson’s 100th pipe organ will be installed in the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia — for the school’s centennial celebration in 2024.
(By Nathan Konz, KCIM, Carroll)