The Gibson Guitar Was Born in Kalamazoo, Not Nashville

Say “Gibson guitar” and most people picture Nashville, where the famous company is based today. But the Gibson — the Les Paul, the guitar behind mountains of rock and blues — actually comes from Kalamazoo, Michigan, where they were built for nearly eighty years.

It started with a man named Orville Gibson, who began crafting finely made mandolins and guitars in a one-room Kalamazoo workshop in the 1890s. In 1902 he and some partners incorporated the company, and in 1917 it settled into a factory at 225 Parsons Street that would be its home for decades. Over the years that plant grew to fill an entire city block.

Out of that Kalamazoo factory came some of the most iconic instruments ever made. During World War II, with so many men away, more than 200 women — later nicknamed the “Kalamazoo Gals” — kept the guitars rolling off the line. After the war, Gibson’s electric guitars helped shape the sound of modern music.

In the early 1980s, the company moved its production to Nashville. But the story didn’t end in Kalamazoo. A handful of master craftsmen who didn’t want to leave stayed behind and, in 1985, started a new company — Heritage Guitars — in part of the very same Parsons Street factory. They’re still there today, building guitars by hand, some on the same old machines.

In 2022, the historic factory was added to the National Register of Historic Places. So the next time you hear a screaming Gibson solo, remember: that whole tradition was born in a guitar shop in southwest Michigan.