FOX FUN FACTS
Theater’s Mighty Möller Organ is mighty indeed
• The Fox Möller Opus 5566 Theatre Organ is the second-largest theater organ in the United States (behind only the instrument at Radio City Music Hall in New York). It has four manuals, 42 ranks and 3,622 pipes.
Maryland city of Hagerstown took notice of Möller’s early successes and induced him to move his business there in 1881. The relocation helped make Hagerstown a viable business center in the western part of the state.
• The organ is more popularly known as the Mighty Mo.
• The “box seats” on either side of the stage actually disguise Mighty Mo’s pipes and instruments.
• More than 7,000 theater organs were installed in American movie houses between 1915 and 1933, but fewer than 40 remain in their original theaters today, and even fewer are operational. That makes the Fox’s Mighty Mo even more exceptional.
• Within the organ chambers are actual instruments used to make dozens of sound effects — songbirds, sirens, a Ford horn, Ludwig snare drums, bass drums, sleigh bells, Zildjian cymbals and a bell from a 1928 railroad locomotive, among many others.
• The Mighty Mo was custom-built by M.P. Möller Inc. of Hagerstown, Md., in 1928 and 1929.
• The term “theater organ” originally referred to a pipe organ designed specifically to imitate an orchestra and accompany a silent film, but as the instrument evolved, new designs and sounds were incorporated.
• M.P. Möller, himself, emigrated to the United States in 1872 and, in 1875, founded the M.P. Möller Pipe Organ Co. in Greencastle, Pa. The 58 ENCOREATLANTA.COM
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE FOX THEATRE
It’s big, it’s historic and makes more sounds than you can count on two hands. Here are a few fun facts about the Fox Theatre’s Mighty Mo.