Editor's note: This is one in a series of stories about Kalamazoo's guitar-making heritage. Go here to read the full series.
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Most guitar aficionados and Kalamazoo residents know the Gibson Guitar Co. was named after its founder, Orville H. Gibson.
But while the legacy of the man is clear, much of Gibson's life remains a mystery.
Why did the native of upstate New York move to Kalamazoo as a 17-year-old? Were his renowned skills as a luthier self-taught? Why did he have so little involvement with the company that took his name?
These are questions Thomas Dietz, a former curator for the Kalamazoo Valley Museum who has given numerous oral history lessons on Gibson, said there may never be definitive answers to.
"Orville's legacy symbolizes his commitment to creating very fine musical instruments," Dietz said. "But as for the man himself, there will likely always be details of his life we can't know for certain."
It's doubtful anyone could have guessed at the time that the Gibson name would go on to launch an internationally recognized company that a century later is identified with many of the most famous guitars players in the world.
Although the company moved from Kalamazoo three decades ago, its legacy remains on Kalamazoo's north side where the old factory and its iconic smokestack still stand.
Personal details scarce
Much of that uncertainty surrounding Orville Gibson attributed to the fact that there are no known documents or letters that can be attributed to him, something Dietz said wouldn't be uncommon for a man who had no spouse or children.
"I don't think anybody in his family probably anticipated 100 years ago that the company that bore his name was going to be one of the most famous musical instrument manufacturers of the 20th century," Dietz said while speculating why Gibson's family didn't keep his documents.
Born in 1856 in Chateaugay, N.Y., Gibson's name first appears locally in a December 1873 edition of the Kalamazoo Telegraph, a newspaper that served Kalamazoo along with the Gazette at the time.
Dietz said it is believed Gibson came to Kalamazoo to reunite with an older brother, Lovell, who had married a local woman. Lovell's marriage was short lived and he divorced and returned to New York within a few years, however, Orville Gibson remained in Kalamazoo.
Why stay? Dietz said Gibson was already an accomplished musician by the time he moved to Kalamazoo. He is first referenced locally as a performer in 1876 and is later cited as leader of the Orpheus Mandolin Orchestra. He also played with other local groups and performed at social events.
Gibson joined the Light Guard -- an early iteration of the National Guard -- and spent time working as a waiter and as a clerk at Sprague's shoe store. Although he didn't open his first mandolin and guitar shop until years later, Dietz said, Gibson's work earned him wide acclaim as a luthier throughout much of the 1870s and 1880s.
But Dietz said the most common misconception he hears is that Gibson did little outside of work and craft stringed instruments. Instead, Dietz said society pages at the time reveal Gibson may have been more of a "playboy of West Michigan."
"We start finding little clippings that he's escorting a young lady home from church one night and they're roughed up by a couple young toughs and it goes to the courts," Dietz said. "Then we find in the social column a few years later that he and his buddies are going to spend a week down on one of the lakes with three or four young ladies."
He would later spend more than 12 years in a relationship with a Margaret Gibson, who was 19 years his junior. Dietz said it is unclear if Margaret was related to Gibson, but the two never married.
Visionary guitar maker
Regardless of his romantic ambitions, Gibson continued to build his reputation as a luthier and started his first guitar and mandolin shop in 1896 at 114 S. Burdick St. He later moved his shop in 1899 to the second floor of 104 E. Main, where he also resided.
What made Gibson's work so sought after was his decision to take principles applied to making arch-top violins at the time and use them to improve the sound of his guitars and mandolins, said Mark Sahlgren, a Kalamazoo musician and former Gibson employee.
"All these arch-top guitars today ... it never would have happened if Orville Gibson didn't have a look at the future," Sahlgren said. "To take the idea of the Stradivarius violin and apply some of those same principals to a mandolin ... that's what made him a visionary."
In 1902, Gibson's products attracted the attention of five local investors, according to former long-time Gibson employee Julius Bellson's self-published book, "The Gibson Story."
Although he had a small number employees working under him at the time, the investors convinced Gibson, who was notorious for being a perfectionist, that manufacturing technology had developed to the point that his instruments could be mass produced without significantly sacrificing their hand-made quality.
Gibson agreed to accept $2,500 and an unspecified monthly fee to work for two years to "impart his knowledge of grading, tuning, and designing the entire construction of said musical instruments and allow the name 'Gibson' to be used on the products," Bellson wrote.
Shortly after the arrangement and the opening of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co.'s first location at 114. E Main St., Orville Gibson appeared to became disillusioned with the arrangement, Dietz said, although the exact reason why is unclear.
"Within five or six years, he is pretty much a figured head in the company," Dietz said.
Declining health
In 1908, the company purchased Gibson's patent rights for his arch-top design for a lump sum and agreed to give him annual royalty payments of $500, which amounts to roughly $20,000 today.
But as the company that bore his name continued to grow, Gibson's health declined, Dietz said.
It is believed mental health issues led to Gibson being declared incompetent to manage his own affairs by a Kalamazoo County court in 1909, Dietz said. A brother took him back to New York, but Orville Gibson returned to Kalamazoo in 1912 and received a probate court order stating he was again competent.
Little is known about Gibson's final years other than the fact that he continued crafting instruments, even making a final stop in Kalamazoo on his trip to a World's Fair.
He died in 1918 at the age of 62 at a hospital in Odensburg, NY. While the cause of his death is listed as chronic endocarditis, Dietz said the hospital also treated mental health conditions.
During Gibson's final years, the Gibson Co. continued its rapid expansion. By 1915, its capital stock increased from $40,000 to $100,000.
In 1917, the company moved to its final Kalamazoo location, the iconic factory at 225 Parsons St. that housed 1,600 employees during peak years.
Even though Gibson himself never stepped foot inside the factory, his presence lingers over it to this day, said Patrick Whalen, an employee of the Heritage Guitar Co. that has inhabited the Parsons Street factory since 1985, a year after Gibson Guitar Co. relocated to Nashville.
Whalen recalled a night when he was in one of building's stairwells and felt a presence next to him.
"Everybody has an Orville sighting," Whalen recalled with a laugh. "I swear when I came up the stairs, somebody came down beside me."
When he turned to look, Whalen was alone.
Alex Mitchell is a reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.