Electric Phonograph Company, 1916-1918

Electric Phonograph Company, 1916-1918

When the Bowers Manufacturing Company set up shop in 1928 in a factory on Willard Street, the new owners discovered several jukeboxes. The Electric Phonograph Company, the building’s previous tenant, had left them there when it closed their doors.

The company’s jukeboxes were unique. They played cylinder records. While these were still popular, the trend was moving from cylinder to disc records. By 1930, the commercial production of cylinders had mostly stopped. The Electric Phonograph Company started in the late 1910s as a manufacturer of musical devices. It apparently hoped that a coin operated jukebox would prove popular at dance halls, skating rinks, and bars. Their gamble on a fading technology proved fatal for the company, and they closed their doors in 1926. When Bowers moved in, they had no use for the jukeboxes, and at some point, the decision was made to junk them.

According to family lore, Mildred Bowers, the wife of Robert H. Bowers, whose father, Ernest, had founded the firm, insisted that one of the juke boxes be saved. She kept it in her office at the factory as a curiosity. When the Bowers factory closed in the 1990s, Mrs. Bowers had the jukebox moved to her home. Her family contacted the Kalamazoo Valley Museum after her passing and donated the jukebox in memory of Robert H. and Mildred Bowers.

Object #2009.32.1

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  21. Electric Phonograph Company, 1916-1918
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