Moment in Time (March 24, 2022)

Theodore Lindenberg Sr. is shown interacting with his patented Lindenberg Sound System in the control room of the theater at the bottom left. Two of his patents, for a motion picture projection system and for a multi-screen theater design, are at the top. His Frank Packard designed hacienda style home is at the bottom right.

Henry Lindenberg and his brother Charles were partners with Mitchell Lilley and John Siebert in M.C. Lilley & Co. in Columbus. Founded in 1865 by these four Civil War veterans, who were members of the fraternal IOOF (Odd Fellows) organization, the company produced “regalia”, such as swords, banners, flags, emblems and uniforms for secret and fraternal societies and organizations like the Odd Fellows and Masons, as well as uniforms for police and military units. The company started on South High Street before relocating to several large buildings at the corner of Long and N. Sixth Streets, and became the largest regalia manufacturer in the world. 

Henry Lindenberg and his wife Susan had three children, Louis, Theodore, and Charlotte, raising them in their home on South Third in German Village. Theodore graduated from Cornell University and then went to work for M.C. Lilley, filling various executive capacities, becoming President in 1928. He served as President until 1937. 

When he returned to Columbus after college and started with Lilley, he decided to join with his cousins Frank, Paul, and Carl (sons of Charles Lindenberg) to build new homes on property that they had purchased and subdivided in the Village of Marble Cliff, which they called the Country Club Addition. Architect Frank Packard, who had earlier designed Charles Lindenberg’s West Broad mansion, now home to the Columbus Foundation, was hired to design all four homes for the brothers and their cousin. Theodore’s was the 1906 hacienda style mansion at 1087 Lincoln Road.

Dating back to his youth, Theodore Lindenberg developed a passion for motion pictures and the technology associated with the capture and projection of movies. Even while he was serving as President of M.C. Lilley, he designed different motion picture related products and spaces, applying for and receiving numerous U.S. patents for his ideas. One was for a sound reproducing system that could provide better sound in spaces such as a theater. Another that he filed in 1934 was for a movie theatre with "a plurality of auditoriums of relatively small size" that used a single projector with a complicated mirror system, which he also patented, to project into both auditoriums. 

His son Theodore Jr. was born in 1911 to the senior Theodore and his wife Helen. As he was growing up, he discussed many of his father’s ideas with him, and from those discussions he also developed an interest in movies, particularly with respect to sound reproduction. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio State in 1930, and after graduation he collaborated with his father on early multi-unit loudspeaker systems. He developed 16mm sound-on-film recording equipment and additional projection innovations, earning his own patents for these ideas (some were joint patents with his father.)

Lindenberg Sr. was the key operator of the Grandview Theater, which opened in 1926, when he used his patents as the model for the Bexley Theatre, with two auditoriums of approximately 250 seats each. He and his son opened it in the fall of 1935, garnering national attention for the design. 

From 1936 to 1940 Theodore Jr. operated his own recording studios in Columbus, and developed early moving-coil and photoelectric pickups, early photo-finish cameras for racetrack use, loudspeakers, and optical recording systems. In 1940 he joined the Fairchild Aviation Corporation as lead engineer on disc recording equipment, guided missiles, and aircraft fire control equipment. After the war he joined the newly formed Fairchild Recording Corporation and later became the chief design engineer with Pickering and Company, designing turntables and needle cartridges. Lindenberg Sr. died in 1941 and Lindenberg Jr. died in 1994.

Both the Grandview Theater and the Lindenberg hacienda can be found on the free History Walks app, available here or download free from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

References:

1. McBride, Harriet. Fraternal regalia in America, 1865 to 1918 : dressing the lodges; clothing the brotherhood, PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, (2000).

2. Lindenberg, Theodore. "Theatre Building", U.S. Patent 2,041,194. May 19, 1936.

3. Lindenberg, Theodore. "Sound-Reproducing Apparatus", U.S. Patent 1,742,402. January 7, 1930.

4. Theodore Lindenberg, Jr. "Motion Picture Projector for Sound Motion Pictures", Patent Application August 8, 1933, Serial No. 684,207.

5. Theodore Lindenberg and Theodore Lindenberg, Jr. "Light Projecting System", Patent Application November 20, 1934, Serial No. 753,950, Patented May 19, 1936.

6. "The Bexley", Motion Picture Daily, V37. #1, New York, Wednesday, January 2, 1935.

7. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Jan 1953 V1#1

8. Theodore Lindenberg Jr. obituary, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1994-12-14-9412140173-story.html

9. "'Naughty Marietta' Shows Off New Bexley's Sound Apparatus." Columbus Dispatch (22 Oct. 1935)

10. Wilson, Samuel T. "New Bexley Theater Has Tuesday Opening." Columbus Dispatch (23 Oct. 1935)