Lefe/bre, and added saxophone models to its Wonder line, including soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. In 1888 Conn made the first US built saxophone, designed by Eduard A. In 1886 Conn opened a second plant at Worcester, Massachusetts, in the former Fiske instrument factory this lasted until 1898. Soon Conn claimed the largest factory of its kind in the world, employing some 300 workers (many of whom were brought to Elkhart from France and England).

Sousa later worked with Conn to design the sousaphone. Conn introduced the Wonder line of models at this time, and endorsers would include the famous wind bandleader John Philip Sousa, whose band was at one time kitted out with a complete set of gold plated Conns. It was, in effect, these early events that would lead to Elkhart becoming the brass and wind capital of America, a position that it still holds today (the city produced some 60 per cent of all the wind instruments sold in the US in 1997).īack in 1883 the Conn factory suffered a major fire, burning the building to the ground, but the city of Elkhart provided a large loan to help Conn back into business Conn had been voted the city's first Democrat mayor three years earlier. The Conn-Dupont operation lasted until 1879 when Conn regained full control of his company. They subsequently formed the Conn-Dupont company, and started production of the Conn Four-In-One cornet, playable in four different keys. In 1876, convinced that he needed specialist help, Conn persuaded a skilled French instrument maker, Eugene Dupont, to leave his employ at the Distin company in England and bring with him a small team of craftsmen. Having developed a process to vulcanize rubber to metal, Conn soon started manufacturing his mouthpieces, at first in humble premises over a drugstore in Elkhart, Indiana. The story goes that Conn devised his original mouthpiece after suffering a split lip in a bar brawl and, wanting to continue to play cornet in a local band, came up with a rubber rimmed mouthpiece ('a cushion for the lips,' Conn called it) that enabled him to play comfortably. As a 21 year old Civil War veteran, Conn invented a brass mouthpiece in 1874 for which patents were soon granted. Charles Gerard Conn was born in upstate New York in 1844.

Conn trumpet serial number list