Paul Eakins

Paul Eakins was a collector and restorer of automated musical instruments.
Paul Roscoe Eakins was born on September 2, 1913 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
He is best known for his world-famous collection of carousel band organs, calliopes, and orchestrions. During the mid-20th century, Eakins amassed one of the finest collections of vintage mechanical music machines in the world, preserving pieces manufactured by legendary makers like Wurlitzer, Limonaire, Gavioli, and Mortier.
Paul did not start out restoring antique band organs. He originally owned a heating and cooling business but was advised to make a change for health reasons. While on a family trip out west, he visited a bar in Lincoln, New Mexico, where he saw an old nickelodeon that no longer played. He thought that perhaps, if he had the opportunity to open up one like it, he could figure out how to make it play again. Paul’s curiosity turned into a hobby and then a profession as he and his wife, Laura, began acquiring both music and arcade machines and restoring them. The collection grew in size to the point that they opened a museum in Sikeston, Missouri, called the Gay 90s Village Museum, where the public could hear these massive mechanical marvels perform. In 1966 Eakins closed the Sikeston location and relocated the entire collection to 320 South Broadway in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, reopening it as The Gay 90s Melody Museum to capture larger tourist crowds. That museum closed in the early 1970s.
Paul Eakins and his collection had played a pivotal role in the atmospheric design of Disney theme parks. Walt Disney was looking for authentic turn-of-the-century music for Disneyland. Disney studio crews recorded several of Eakins' machines to use as audio tracks for Main Street, U.S.A., and the King Arthur Carrousel. In the 1970s Eakins worked with the Disney corporation providing recorded organ music to shows, to Disney Parks’ celebrations, and in 1975, to their bicentennial parades. In 1977 Eakins decided to retire and sold much of his collection to Disney.
Eakins was a pioneer in recording these machines using high-fidelity audio equipment, ensuring their unique musical arrangements were captured for future generations.
He passed away on October 10, 1990, at the age of 77.