"Nothing comparable in size or arrangement has ever been built," the chair of the city's organ committee, A.
Shortly before the building opened, a fundraising drive was launched to pay for a grand pipe organ. The Minneapolis Auditorium opened to great fanfare in 1927, hailed by one local business leader as "one of the greatest civic attractions we have." It was home to concerts, exhibitions, meetings and sporting events - including Minneapolis Lakers basketball games starting in the 1940s. Money, or a lack thereof, is the thread that runs through the Mighty Kimball's history.Ī crowd at the opening of the Minneapolis Auditorium in 1927. "It can go from a whisper - something very transparent, like incense - to the roar of a salvo of cannons." Paul by American Public Media and broadcast on 100 public radio stations nationwide. "It's ravishingly beautiful, and it has the potential to move hearts and souls with its music, if given half a chance," said Michael Barone, the host and senior executive producer of "Pipedreams," which is produced in St. Instead, its myriad pieces quietly occupy a warren of rooms that were originally intended to house its complicated mechanics.
To this day, an elaborate bronze plaque in the building's lobby thanks people who donated money for "the preservation and reinstallation of the Mighty Kimball organ." The plan was to reassemble it inside one of the convention center's domed exhibition halls. In 1987, shortly before the Minneapolis Auditorium was razed, the organ was carefully dismantled, catalogued and stored in wooden crates.