Immanuel (Evangelical) Lutheran Church (LCMS)

103 Fourth Street
Lidderdale, IA 51452


Builder: Wangerin Organ Co., (no date known).
Manuals: 2
Ranks: 5
Compass: 61/32
Stops: 26
Action: Electro-pneumatic

Notes: John Panning (Dobson) states the organ was destroyed in a fire circa 1996. It had occupied gallery-level chambers at rear of church. Additional information from Organ Historical Society as of 2009.

Wangerin Organ started as the Hann-Wangerin-Weickhardt company in the 19th-century. Later it was known as Wangerin/Weickhardt, after a partnership of Adolph Wangerin and George J. Weickhardt. The partnership ended with the death of Adolph Weickhardt in 1919. Many of its organs are still played in churches today.

The Wangerin Organ Company continued after Adoph's death (from 1912-1942) and was a manufacturer of pipe organs based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During the theater organ boom in the 1920s, when the Barton Organ Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin could not keep up with the production demand, the Wangerin factory first loaned them factory space, and later was sub-contracted to build organs for them.

During World War II, when manufacture of musical instruments was banned in 1942 in order to focus on the war effort, the Wangerin-Weickhardt Company built wooden airplane parts and other war-related goods.

The Wangerin firm never resumed organ operations following World War II.