Click on the thumbnails to view full-sized color images. All photos ©Rock River Thresheree, Inc. unless otherwise noted.
		The L. S. Burr Steam Calliope is located in our Museum of Agriculture and Industry.
		From the early 1890s until the late 1920s, the most prolific builder of steam calliopes was the Thos. J. Nichol Co. of Cincinnati, OH. They manufactured brass goods for industries and steamboats -- the calliopes were a specialty for which they were widely known. After Mr. Nichol's death, the companies assets were acquired by John M. Van Splunter (owner of The General Devices & Fittings Co.) of Grand Rapids, MI. He built one calliope in the late 1930s but it was never sold. [Photo at left is of The General Devices & Fittings Co. in Grand Rapids, MI; ©1988 Fred Dahlinger, Jr.]
		In the 1950s, he was contacted by Lloyd S. Burr. Van Splunter sold a set of whistles to Burr in 1954. Burr already had a boiler and duplicated a Crosby steam valve for operating the whistles, adding a set of eccentric solenoid valves to control the steam pilots on the Crosby valve. Besides being a true steam nut, Burr was also an electrical engineer who had worked on the Shasta Dam and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. His early use of an electric control system on the calliope was not surprising. [Charlie Bryan is on the right; L. S. Burr is probably the man on the left]
		When Burr put the whistles on his setup, five of them didn't work and had to be returned to Grand Rapids. No one knows if they were lost in transit or at the Grand Rapids shop; but, somehow, Burr ended up with a full set of whistles. Perhaps Burr constructed the whistles himself (patterns for a few parts were for sale at the auction). [Photo at left is of the John Van Splunter home in Grand Rapids, MI; ©1988 Fred Dahlinger, Jr.]
		Burr mounted the calliope, boiler and keyboard on a straight bed truck and used it on various occasions. In 1961, he used it to announce the arrival of the new S.S. Canberra in downtown San Francisco, sparking a letter from the warden at Alcatraz who claimed the music could be heard on the island. [Skelton Photography, San Francisco, CA]
		The solenoid/Crosby valve setup allowed Burr's calliope to be operated at a very high pressure. Typical calliopes use a pressure reducing valve and limit manifold pressure to 30 to 40 psi. Burr started his at 130 psi and played down to 80 psi, making it extremely loud (as evidenced by the children in this photo covering their ears even as the calliope leaves the block). [Skelton Photography, San Francisco, CA]
		Since (as far as we know) Burr himself couldn't play the calliope, Charlie Bryan was his usual player. Bryan was a nightclub player in Fresno, CA. Burr would gladly disclose information about his steam hobbies, but rarely much information about himself. Van Splunter died in the mid 1950s after building only one more calliope.
		The late Harry Schell built (as well as rebuilt and/or modified) other calliopes along the lines of Van Splunter's designs, such as the Somers calliope at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI. He also did work on the ex-Eakins calliope at Disney World (which is not the one in the wagon they use for promotional work); Disney has yet to put the ex-Eakins calliope to use.
		Our calliope player is quite talented, too, and can be heard from most locations on the grounds. (If you know who this is, help me out! I'm new!)
[Source: Fred Dahlinger, Jr., 1988]