The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company
North Tonawanda, New York

Trade names were Eagle, Lyric, Wurlitzer.

Credited for popularizing the jukebox, and introducing the world's most iconic model, the model 1015 Wurlitzer, the name quickly became a widely used synonym for jukebox. Among other advances, Wurlitzer was also the world's first manufacturer of spiral vending machines with cooling systems. Now it is owned by Gibson Guitar Corp. 

The Wurlitzer family started buying and selling musical items in Saxony as far back as 1659. The father of the original Wurlitzer company, Rudolph Wurlitzer was born in Schilbach, Saxony in 1829. In 1853 Rudolph Wurlitzer went to the United States and in 1856 he founded "The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company" in Cincinnati, Ohio. Initially he imported musical instruments from his family in Germany to sell them on the American market, but soon made his way into manufacturing. He started selling instruments to the U.S. government during the Civil War. Soon he became the largest instrument supplier in the USA. Through a chain of retail stores in Chicago he started marketing a line of pianos which he manufactured.

1880 Rudolph Wurlitzer attached a coin slot to a piano and by that, the first Wurlitzer piano was built in the U.S., followed by the first coin-operated electric piano in 1896. This started the coin-operated music boom of the late 1800s. It was the beginning of what would prove to be a continuing success story for Wurlitzer.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Wurlitzer became famous for the large theater organs that created sound for silent films. These large organs and many other types of automatic instruments were manufactured at a large facility in North Tonawanda, N.Y. The factory still stands today (2000). Rudolph Wurlitzer died in 1914. His three sons took over.

The next major musical venture for Wurlitzer came with the introduction of cinema and theatre organs. These instruments, dubbed Mighty Wurlitzers, created an instant sensation when they appeared on the market during the silent movie era. The introduction of Wurlitzer-driven musical soundtracks to movies fostered dramatic changes within the motion picture and entertainment industries.

Farny Wurlitzer, the youngest son of Rudolph Wurlitzer, bought a patented jukebox mechanism in 1933 from Homer Capehart and hired gifted professionals for design and marketing. From their new location in North Tonawanda, New York, these imaginative inventors (like Erickson) developed the first Wurlitzer Jukebox, the Debutante. Over the next few years, Wurlitzer Jukeboxes became widely embraced by operators, by 1937 Wurlitzer had sold over 100,000 phonographs. By the late 1930s, Wurlitzer was producing over 45,000 jukeboxes a year. The jukebox became known as the "small man's concert hall".

In the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s, the styling of Wurlitzer Jukeboxes was taken to a new level by a gifted designer, Paul Fuller. In the early 1940's Wurlitzer introduced the 700, 750, and 850 models. There designs made them real classics and established Wurlitzer as a definitive force within the industry. The design was made with sophisticated and artistic use of plastics, glass, and wood.