From the OHS Database Builders Listing editor, November 8, 2016. -

John Taylor Fort (1924-2016) was an organbuilder in Weatherford, Texas. He was succeded by his son, Paul, the current director of the Fort Organ Company of Dallas, Texas.

John Fort was born September 8, 1924 in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1943 and achieved the rank of Aviation Machinist's Mate Second Class. He had been admitted to Naval Air Corps Flight Training at Murray State Teacher's College in Murray, Kentucky but when the war ended he chose to be honorably discharged, having lost his brother, Lt. Paul Irwin Fort (Army Air Corps), who was shot down in March of 1945 while piloting a C-47 paratroop transport in the crossing of the Rhine at Wesel, Germany.

After World War II he traveled with the Billy Graham Campus Crusades and he later attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas to follow a call to be in the ministry. While studying at SMU, he took a part-time job with the Herman Boettcher Organ Company, a pipe organ builder in Dallas where he later became a full-time staff member for a total of eight years. He soon realized he had found his life calling with a career that combined all his talents and interests in the ministry, music, and mechanics. In 1958 he decided to form his own pipe organ building business, the John T. Fort Organ Co. and, at the time of his passing, was still acting as Director Emeritus after a career span of 66 years in the pipe organ building and service business and occasionally traveling with son, Paul, the current Director of the re-named Fort Organ Company.

John Fort died March 27, 2016 in Weatherford, Texas.

Source:

• Obituary from Grove Hill Funeral Home, Dallas, Texas, http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=John-Fort&lc=2201&pid=179424366&mid=6863332.

Founder of company deceased 2016. Company succeeded by son 1991