Spreckels Organ Pavilion Amphitheater - San Diego, CA
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denben
N 32° 43.772 W 117° 09.025
11S E 485905 N 3621313
The Spreckels Organ Pavilion is located at the corner of President's Way and Pan American Road East in Balboa Park, San Diego.
Waymark Code: WM10D11
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 04/16/2019
Views: 3
The Place:
The Spreckels Organ Pavilion was built for the 1915 fair. It was restored in 1981, and in 2002 the organ was expanded from 3,400 to 4,518 pipes. In 2015, the organ was expanded to 80 ranks and 5,017 pipes. San Diego's Spreckels Organ is now the world's largest pipe organ in a fully outdoor venue, although western New York has the larger Massey Memorial Organ in an open-air auditorium with a roof.
Free organ concerts are given at 2:00 p.m. each Sunday afternoon, sponsored by San Diego Parks and Recreation Department, the Spreckels Organ Society and private donations. On Monday evenings in the summer, The Spreckels Summer International Organ Festival is also presented by the Spreckels Organ Society. During the summer on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, "Twilight in the Park" provides mixed popular concerts. The annual December Nights celebration is performed on the Spreckels stage. (
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The Person:
John Diedrich Spreckels (August 16, 1853 – June 7, 1926), the son of German-American industrialist Claus Spreckels, founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The entrepreneur's many business ventures included the Hotel del Coronado and the San Diego and Arizona Railway, both of which are credited with helping San Diego develop into a major commercial center.
Upon his death he was eulogized as "One of America's few great Empire Builders who invested millions to turn a struggling, bankrupt village into the beautiful and cosmopolitan city San Diego is today."
Spreckels contributed to the cultural life of the city by building the Spreckels Theatre, the first modern commercial playhouse west of the Mississippi. He gave generously to the fund to build the 1915 Panama-California Exposition and, together with his brother Adolph B. Spreckels, donated the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park to the people of San Diego just before the opening of the Exposition. Spreckels paid the salaries of a resident organ tuner and of the organist for many years, providing free daily organ concerts. (
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