Lucas Theatre for the Arts

When the Lucas Theatre’s Wurlitzer organ was removed in the 1970s, it seemed gone for good. The instrument spent decades stored in an outdoor barn, survived a fire, and sat in pieces while the theater itself faced its own near-death experience.

In 1986, the Lucas was slated to be demolished and replaced by a parking garage, but local preservationists Emma and Lee Adler created a nonprofit group to save the aging theater. The organ’s fate hung in similar limbo until local business owner Stratton Leopold campaigned for the organ’s return.

In 2023, after a meticulous, years-long restoration, the fully restored organ was returned to the theater, now featuring over 1,620 pipes in total with seven additional ranks added. The reunion makes it one of fewer than 15 Wurlitzer pipe organs worldwide to remain in the building where they were originally installed. Of the 2,143 Wurlitzers built between 1910 and 1943, almost none survived decades of exile only to find their way back home.