Jesse French Piano & Organ Company
The Jesse French Piano & Organ Company was a musical instrument dealer founded in Nashville, Tennessee in the 1870s that operated in Birmingham as early as 1877.
French merged his business with O. K. Houck & Co. of Memphis, Tennessee and the Field-French Company of St Louis, Missouri (which he had founded with a brother-in-law). In the mid-1880s they bought the stock of Birmingham rival Gilbert Carter, whom they retained as manager of the showroom at 215 21st Street North. The company also opened new branches in Little Rock, Arkansas; Chattanooga, Tennessee and Orlando, Florida as they spread across the south and southwest.
The Birmingham office, which handled sales across northern Alabama and parts of Georgia and Mississippi, employed Frank Turner of Boston as its piano tuner and repairer.
At some point the company moved to 1810 3rd Avenue North, but vacated that space by 1905 to make room for the Majestic Theatre.