Hann-Wangerin
1897

Jim Stettner on April 6th, 2024:
Updated through online information from Jeffery C. Rowley: It is possible that the organ being built for the first Wooden Church prior to 1914 was built by Wm. Schulke of Milwaukee. There is a date of 1897 written on one of the Subbass 16' pipes and Wangerin was not formed until 1914. It is possible that Wangerin moved this instrument into the new Brick Church built in 1914-1915. It is at this juncture that a separate group formed the Central Christ Lutheran Church and split in 1914 to move to a new building in Stoughton. Wangerin moved the organ to the new brick facility and made no changes at that time.

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Jeffery Rowley on May 23rd, 2020:
The Wangerin Organ was purchased in 1896 for the second sanctuary. The organ was moved in 1904 to a new sanctuary build on the same site as the second sanctuary. The Schantz Organ Company built a new detached console, the 1904 Sanctuary was remodled after a small altar fire in 1966. At this point the entire instrument was now under one expression. A Crescendo pedal was added at this time. Norbert Berschdorf from Milwaukee, Wisconsin split the manuals into two chambers now at the left and right in the sanctuary with an additional 5 ranks to the Swell and 6 Ranks to the Great. The Swell had always had 73 notes for coupling purposes and the new Swell ranks had 73 pipes per rank as well. A New Sanctuary was constructed in 1999. The organ was transferred by Fred Hermes. The specification was the same only the offset chest for the swell did not get installed. 2005 was a very bad year for the church because the entire facility burned to the ground including the attached school. A new sanctuary was built at 700 County HWY B. The organ was the only thing that did not burn because it was behind the very last firewall and it was re-installed in 2007 by Fred Hermes. The swell gained the full use of the Bourdon 16' at this time. Additional changes were made in 2013 by the Fabry, Inc of Antioch Illinois. The Swell replaced the Aeoline/Violin/Nasard cut downs with a new proper Nasard 2 2/3'. The Great replaced the weak Gemshorn/4'/2' changes from 1974 and replaced it with a new Gemshorn that was voiced to mach the remaineder of the pipes. A new console was supplied by Organ Supply Industries.