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In 1922, the player piano maker moved into a facility located at 1500 Union Avenue, a site previously occupied by a manufacturer of horse-drawn hearses, where it has been building jukeboxes ever since. It had only eight selections from which to choose - nothing like the quarter-million-plus array available on today’s digital jukeboxes, which offer on-demand access to an unlimited amount of songs stored in a remote music library.įrom the start, National Automatic Music was based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the boyhood home of President Gerald R. They were popular in the early 1900s, around the same time the acoustic gramophone became fashionable.įor its player piano, National Automatic Music held two patents for a “selecting device” that allowed the patron to select any desired music roll in the magazine to play. The company’s manufacturing division, National Piano Manufacturing Co., operated as a separate entity.Įarly 20th century player pianos, which played music without the need for a human pianist, were controlled by mechanical or pneumatic means today they are electronic. Its jukebox business dates back to 1909 when the National Automatic Music Co., with only $200 in working capital, began leasing and building automatic electrical player pianos. Rowe International, the oldest and largest manufacturer of coin-operated jukeboxes, has contributed greatly to jukebox fortunes throughout 20th the century. Deeply rooted in American culture, the jukebox has played a central role in the music industry for almost a century, helping to promote and establish numerous artists across the nation.