In April 1923, a young cornet player from New Orleans stood in the corner of a cramped recording studio wedged between a piano factory and the railroad tracks in Richmond, Indiana. He was positioned as far from the recording horn as possible, because his tone overpowered the whole band. The takes had to be timed between passing trains. His name was Louis Armstrong, and it was the first time his sound was ever captured on record.
That studio belonged to Gennett Records — and the story of how one of the most consequential labels in American music ended up in a Whitewater Gorge factory town is one of Indiana’s best-kept secrets.
The Piano Company by the Tracks
Gennett Records was born in 1917 as a side project of Richmond’s Starr Piano Company, named for company president Henry Gennett. The majors in New York ignored what they considered fringe music — so Gennett recorded it all: hot jazz, country blues, hillbilly string bands, gospel, sermons, anything with a paying audience. The studio itself was famously unglamorous: a long, narrow room in the gorge where engineers listened for the interurban schedule so a rumbling freight wouldn’t ruin a take.
April 1923: Louis Armstrong Steps to the Horn
When King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band came down from Chicago that spring, Armstrong was the second cornet. The sides they cut in Richmond are the earliest recordings of the man who would become the defining voice of American music. Jazz historians have called the Gennett studio “the cradle of recorded jazz” ever since — and this is the room they mean. Armstrong remembered the practical details as much as the music: a Mohawk rug laid across the floor to deaden the sound, in a building where nothing much kept the trains out.
The First Integrated Sessions
A month earlier, in March 1923, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings — a white band — recorded with the Black pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton, releasing seven sides together. They are widely regarded as the first known racially integrated recording sessions in American history. It happened in Richmond, Indiana, decades before the industry caught up.
Four Genres, One Room
The roll call of who recorded for Gennett reads like the founding faculty of American music. Jazz: Armstrong, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, a young Duke Ellington, and Indiana’s own Hoagy Carmichael — whose “Stardust” began life in Richmond. Blues: Charley Patton, Big Bill Broonzy, Alberta Hunter, and Thomas A. Dorsey, who would go on to invent modern gospel. Country: Gene Autry made his first recordings for Gennett. The label caught the birth of four genres at once because it was willing to record the music everyone else ignored.
The Fall
The Depression did what the trains never could. Record sales collapsed after 1929, the label wound down in the early 1930s, and the Starr Piano complex slowly emptied. Most of the factory is gone today — but the ground is still there, and Richmond never forgot what happened on it.
What You Can See Today
The Gennett Records Walk of Fame runs along South First Street at the old Starr Piano site in Whitewater Gorge Park — bronze-and-ceramic medallions shaped like 78s, one per honored artist, set into the trail. The studio itself was a long, narrow room — roughly 125 feet by 30 — that stood about midway along the walk you’re standing on. Louis Armstrong was the first inductee in 2007, and the walk now honors more than 30 artists across 29 installed medallions — a few plaques carry two names, which is why the two counts differ. It’s free, open, and self-guided, and the trail connects to the Cardinal Greenway and the coast-to-coast American Discovery Trail.
An honest note before you go: in June 2026, vandals damaged 20 of the 29 installed medallions — apparently mistaking the bronze for valuable copper — and an arrest was made shortly after. Repairs are in the Starr-Gennett Foundation’s hands and the timeline is still taking shape, so check their site for current conditions if the medallions are the main reason for your trip. The gorge, the trail, the surviving administration building with the Gennett logo, and the ground itself are all still there — and still worth the pilgrimage.
Each September, the Walk of Fame Celebration fills the gorge with live music, food vendors, and medallion tours — the best single day to visit. And when you’re done, the Depot District is minutes away: Firehouse BBQ & Blues books blues bands most weekends in an 1860s firehouse, which feels exactly right. See our Richmond live music guide for the full picture.
Plan Your Visit
- Walk of Fame: S 1st St at Whitewater Gorge Park, Richmond — free, self-guided, dawn to dusk
- Current conditions: check starrgennettfoundation.org for medallion restoration updates
- Best day to go: the annual Walk of Fame Celebration each September
- Afterwards: Firehouse BBQ & Blues in the Depot District — blues on weekends
The music that came out of this room is still being played across the state. See our guides to jazz, blues and country and Americana in Indiana.