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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
12
WALTER S. PIERCE,
San Francisco, Cal.
The subject of this sketch, Walter S. Pierce,
to quote his own words, is " about all there is
left of the old California Piano Mfg. Co." The
California Piano Mfg. Co. is a thing of the past.
It was incorporated in 1882, with Mr. Pierce as
salesman and generally recognized as well in-
formed in the business. As a road man expe-
rience has covered entire West and Southwest,
also Pacific Coast.
Mr. Pierce has reached his fifty-second year,
and by a reference to his photographic present-
ment here given it will be seen that the five
decades and over have lightly rested their weight
on his expressive featvires.
Diego, California, and another in the City of
Mexico handling these goods exclusively was
added. After the establishment of the four
stores it was deemed advisable to incorporate.
This was done in 1890, and the now W. G.
Walz Co., with W. G. Walz as president and
manager, with musical merchandise as its prin-
W. Q. WALZ COMPANY,
El Paso, Texas.
W. G. Walz was born in Canton, O., 1850. His
parents moved West, stopping at several places,
finally landing at Mankato, Minn., in 1859, a then
frontier town. His first work was in February,
'63, when he started out on a peddling trip, made
mostly by stage, selling pictures of the " Indian-
hanging " that had taken place in Mankato the
December before, when thirty-eight Indians
were hung on one scaffold and at one drop.
Traveled through a good part of Minnesota and
Wisconsin, and as far east as Lake Michigan.
In a three months' trip he sold pictures enough
WALTER S. PIERCE.
H. C. WARDLEIGH.
the '' practical '' head and general manager.
They leased a factory, corner of 4th and Bryant
streets, in this city, which was subsequently
burned. The factory was built for a carriage
manufactory and was very completely ap-
pointed with best kind of wood working ma-
chinery, etc., originally costing $200,000, but
failing, the original projectors, the Piano Com-
pany got possession of it for a " mere song,''
and the flames finally consumed both, failing
the president. They continued manufacturing
in a small way for a time, but for several years
it has been defunct. Walter S. Pierce was
born in Massachusetts; educated in music
preparatory to going into piano business ; went
direct from school into a piano factory to learn
cipal feature, occupies a prominent place among
the commercial institutions of the Southwest.
This firm import such small musical mer-
chandise as is made in Europe direct from that
country. Their leading pianos are the Hard-
man, J. & C. Fischer, Behr Bros, and Bush &
Gerts. The principal office of the company is
in El Paso, Texas.
HENRY C. WARDLEIGH,
Ogden, Utah.
The genial proprietor of Wardleigh 's Temple
of Music, at Ogden, Utah, was born in England
in 1844. He came to New York with his parents
in 1851, where he attended the public schools in
H. N. COCKRELL.
w. G. WALZ.
the trade in Boston in the early fifties. He
passed from bench to salesroom, from there to
counting room, and from there on to the road
as wholesale salesman. In 1872 became con-
nected with the W. W. Kimball Co., of Chicago,
and is acting as general Pacific Coast agent for
them at present. Mr. Pierce is rated a fair floor
to pay all expenses, and came home with a new
suit of clothes, paid for out of the profits of the
trip. In the fall of the same year he took a
position as clerk in a drug store at Mankato.
In '69 he took up the sewing machine business,
which was being run in connection with the
drug business. He afterward went into the
sewing machine business exclusively, and in
'71 was appointed by the Weed Sewing Machine
Co. as their traveling representative for Minne-
sota, West Wisconsin, North Michigan ar.d
Dakota. He remained with the Weed Sewing
Machine Co. until '78, when with J. A. San-
burn, under the firm name of Sanburn & Walz,
he again went into the drug business ; this
time in connection with musical instruments
and sewing machines. Selling out at Mankato
in '81, he put in a stock of musical instruments
in El Paso, Texas, establishing the—at that
time—only music house in that section of the
country within a radius of over six hundred
miles. Later on a branch house was established
in Paso del Norte, now Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
A collection of Mexican art goods was made a
feature in each house, and a house in San
ELMON ARMSTRONG.
New York until 1858, when he moved to St.
Louis, and began the music business there in
Henry P. Sherburne's " New York Music Store."
When the war broke out he was on the Pacific
Coast, and he lost no time in enlisting in the
Union cause. He served during the war in the
ad Regiment Cavalry, California Volunteers.