GIBSON

So where did the Gibson guitar come from? Why, from a certain Orville Gibson but he set off making mandolins! Who knew?!

On this day in music history: October 10, 1902 - Luthier Orville H. Gibson establishes the Gibson Mandolin Guitar Mfg. Co., Ltd. in Kalamazoo, MI. Gibson begins crafting mandolins in his home workshop beginning in 1894, being the first to build mandolins and guitars featuring hand carved arch tops, similar to the tops on violins and other classical string instruments. Gibson is granted a patent for his unique design. These innovations help to further popularize these instruments, in part by making them more durable and louder when played. When demand for Gibson’s instruments becomes too great for his small shop, he makes plans to expand his business with other luthiers and craftsmen helping him build instruments. The company eventually becomes known as the Gibson Guitar Company, who come forth with many innovations in stringed instruments. They revolutionize the development of the acoustic and electric guitars.

The serious, mustachioed young man worked odd jobs clerking in a shoe store and a restaurant while nurturing whittling and woodworking hobbies on the side. Also an accomplished musician, Orville played guitar in a local quartet with Thaddeus McHugh, a later Gibson employee who would file the patent for the first trussrod in 1922. Eventually Orville acquired his own woodshop—renting a 10-foot by 12-foot space where the young inventor, who never married, dreamed up his startling designs—designs that would shape musical instrument manufacturing forever. Kalamazoo records list the address of "O.H. Gibson, Manufacturer, Musical Instruments" as 114 South Burdick Street. There, Orville made most of his mandolins and guitars out of scrap furniture.

Oh and it would appear (I say appear) that Orville was a left hander. All the pictures of him seem to show him with his hair parted on the right including the one or two with him playing an acoustic guitar left handed. Of course if you know otherwise happy to stand corrected