No Man Band

his home in Pike, New York. George was a trance medium, someone who would speak as though the dead were communicating through them during a seance. He traveled all over the country, conducting sessions and giving readings to the public. But it was during a stay in Iowa when his travels took him on a journey he'd never expected. He had been contacted during one of his seances by a Native American spirit called Seneca. Seneca told George to go to Florida.

It was there where he was meant to establish a community for others like him, mediums, psychics, and other spiritual men and women who would flock to this place to practice their craft, making a home for themselves apart from a world that called them hacks and frauds. As he made his way south, George contracted a bad case of tuberculosis. By the time he'd reached his destination, he was in bad shape and close to death. Seneca, now deemed his spirit guide by the intrepid medium, led him to a

spring deep in the wilds of Florida. George drank from that spring, and according to his tail, the waters cured him of his ailment. This was the beginning of a town he would call the Cassadega Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association, more commonly known as Plee Cassadega, named after a spiritual community near his hometown back in New York. Perhaps Seneca had been right, or maybe George just happened to tap into something needed at the time, but Cassadega became an

overnight sensation. Psychics and mediums quickly found their way to the town and built houses for themselves across its fifty seven acres. Many of the homes became makeshift business establishments, as their occupants were known to host seances for tourists who had come to learn of their loved ones fate

in the afterlife. Growth kind of stalled in the nineteen thirties, but the mediums never left, and their descendants eventually took over the homes and the family businesses, conducting seances and readings for curious tourists who were passing through. Of course, a town populated by spiritualists was bound to attract other

entities as well. The hotel Cassadega, which still looks just like it did in nineteen seven, continues to rent rooms to folks looking to indulge their other worldly side for more than a a It's been said guests have even run into a friendly ghost or two during their time there. It's not surprising to learn that the hotel isn't the only part of the town that's remained the same since

its inception. Hassadega itself really hasn't changed much since the nineteen thirties, when it was a major destination for spiritualists from all over the country. Today, while the world around Cassadega marches forward, those who live there and maintain it make sure the camp remains true to its roots. Resident psychics there have claimed to have spoken to all manner of famous spirits like that of Abraham Lincoln, and have witnessed all sorts of paranormal phenomena around town. Computers and

compiers have been known in malfunction out of nowhere. Ghosts wander around homes, peering from windows to pedestrians. Outside in the cemetery on the edge of town, there's something called the Devil's Chair, a place for mourners to rest and reflect on the passing of loved ones. However, as time has gone by, a more sinister narrative has come to surround the chair. Allegedly, anyone brave enough to sit in it is said to come face to face with the

devil himself. There's a curfew within the camp that lasts from dusk until dawn, discouraging anyone who might be looking to cause trouble after dark. Psychic readings, handwriting analysis, and seances are still conducted today, and the town continues to be a beacon for those in touch with the other side. I assume George Colby would be proud to know his little community is still around today, but he died decades ago,

long before it reached its peak. But if we really wanted to know, maybe somebody there could just ask him. Most Inventions arise in order to fulfill a need. Perhaps there's something tedious that can be done more efficiently, or a job to differ cult for our bare hands that a machine can do for us. Inventions have the power to improve upon the world. The automobile got us from point A to point be faster and more safely than

horses ever did. The printing press allowed for the mass production of books, as well as increased literacy across the world. Thanks to the press, books were no longer handwritten works of art meant only for the wealthy. And then there's the Phonalist doubt the eighth Wonder of the World. When it was unveiled in nineteen ten, the concept behind it wasn't entirely new. It was created in Germany by Ludwig Hupfeld, a manufacturer of player pianos and orchestrians. Orchestrions were automatic

music players designed to sound like full bands. Hiring live musicians to play at parties and in hotel lobbies was expensive, but a business could invest in an orchestrion and provide customers with a live performance at any time. Many orchestrions combined piano, drums, xylophones, and pipe organs. To get a complete sound, a roll of paper with precisely punched holes was spun beneath a metal bar that would trigger a series of pneumatic bellows, activating a specific tone from one

of the instruments, or several of them at once. The phono list, however, was different. Rather than including only percussive instruments like pianos and drums, Upfield's creation added something extraordinary violins, three of them, to be exact, But it wasn't as simple as you might expect to add them. In first, violin isn't played like a piano. There are no keys to press. The note was made by pressing a finger against a string in a certain spot and then dragging

a bow across it. In order to achieve this without the use of a human hand, each of the three violins was reduced to only one active string that mounted vertically above the player piano. As the paper roll was fed across the reader bar, pneumatic bellows acted like violinist fingers, pressing each string in the right ace so the correct note could be played, and as that happened, a circular

bow made of horsehairs rotated around the violins. Eliciting either one note at a time or full chords while the piano played underneath. The result was a feast for the eyes and the ears. No one had ever built something that's so accurately replicated an orchestral sound before, and no one at the nineteen ten Brussels International World's Fair had heard anything like it before. A home or business with one of these on display didn't need to hire a band or a string quartet to liven the place up.

It could do all that for them. Stores often had coin operated models that would play any one of several songs on demand. Occasionally, additional performers would accompany the machine, providing a live component to the automated sound. Customers would flock to watch the phono lists mechanisms move while they listened to the sweet music being played. All told, nearly a thousand paper music rolls were made for it, though

sadly it's popularity didn't last too long. By the nine twenties, as phonographs and radios became the norm, the phono list fell into obscurity. They were big and loud and very expensive, and nobody wanted to hear a fake band when the real thing was just the drop of a needle away. Out of the thousands that were manufactured, only sixty three

still exist today, and they're not cheap. One recently sold at auction for almost nine thousand dollars, and I've got to say, at that price, a live band doesn't sound like a bad idea after all. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.

I may another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.