Starr Piano Company Building

The Starr Piano Company began operations on a site in the Whitewater River gorge in Richmond, Indiana, in the 1870s, eventually growing into a large multi-building campus, known as Starr Valley, that manufactured pianos and, later, phonographs and records. The company's warehouse dates to 1872 and its administration building to about 1900.

In 1917 Starr Piano founded Gennett Records, which became one of the most historically important recording operations of the early jazz era. In its modest studio beside the factory, Gennett captured landmark early sides by Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, Hoagy Carmichael, and many blues and country artists, making Richmond an unlikely cradle of recorded American music.

The Starr Piano Company Warehouse and Administration Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, though it was later removed from the register in 1995. Most of the sprawling Starr Valley complex was demolished in the 1970s, leaving surviving structures and remnants in the gorge.

Today the legacy is commemorated by the Gennett Records Walk of Fame, which begins near the surviving building and follows 1st Street, and by the work of the Starr-Gennett Foundation. The site is a destination for music and industrial-history visitors in Richmond's Whitewater Gorge.