By now, I'm sure most of us are familiar with the events of last Friday and the destructive fire at the Brin Building. It remains to be seen what will become of it, and many of us have already weighed in on various groups on Facebook and other social platforms since hearing the news. I won't belabor the point much longer, as people have been put out of their homes as a result and the recollections of one lone blogger who tends to live too much in the past mean little at such a time. It is enough to say that it was a shock and a blow to Menasha's collective psyche and whatever the future may bring to that particular corner, it cannot dampen almost ninety years of memories for the city. Collectively, many of us spent countless hours of our childhoods and teenage years in that auditorium, or the bowling alley or in the shops that were a part of the building. Here's to the good times we all remember.
Perhaps the best part of the Brin left Menasha around 1969 when a guy named Truel acquired the theater organ and took it to his house outside Los Angeles and installed it there in operable condition. Hard to say what is it's status today. The organ was a Barton, the most famous was the one at the Chicago Stadium which succumbed to a fire in the 1990's. Barton Organs came from Oshkosh and were popular throughout the Midwest. To this day, they are highly regarded for their Barton sound. There are cherished survivors in Michigan, Madison WI, and in Iowa, and presumably others.
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