In April 1918, Holton opened a factory in Elkhorn, Wisconsin moving over 200 employees and 85 carloads of machinery from Chicago. It would be home to Frank Holton & Company for only a decade. īy 1907, a skilled horn maker had been hired, and the production of Holton instruments required the construction of a factory on the West Side of Chicago. Unable to make the rent at times, Holton was known to pawn instruments at a shop on Clark Street between 18. The Frank Holton Company Chicago įrank Holton's first business venture on his own was a small rented shop with a desk, two counters and two chairs that he had to paint himself at Clark and Madison streets in Chicago, in 1898, where he sold used instruments and his own formula slide oil for trombone. Frank Holton died after a protracted illness on Apat the age of 84. Frank Holton, though not an instrument maker himself, expanded his company to manufacture instruments which was his occupation until retiring at age 80. įrank Holton's wife Florence was a music teacher.
In 1885 he had partnered with James Warren York in York & Holton, before he established his own company in 1898. By the time he was 34, Frank Holton was an accomplished trombone player and principal trombone of the Sousa Band, a role that would later be filled by Arthur Pryor. Holton was born Main Allegan, Michigan to farmers Otis (b.