August 19, 1911

Entrepreneur, inventor and engineer John Herbert Orr was born in Lee County. Orr served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was part of a team that discovered a new German-developed recording medium, magnetic recording tape. After the war, Orr used his knowledge of the technology to found Orradio Industries in Opelika as one of the first American companies to produce magnetic tape. He later sold his company, but continued to work with audio and video recording technology throughout his life. The John Herbert Orr Pioneer Award at the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, which is reserved for leaders and innovators in the music industry, was named in his honor.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Industrialist John Orr and Mary Jordan Bohler, who worked as his secretary for many years. Orr was a pioneer in the magnetic tape and audio recording industry, notably as the owner of ORRadio Industries in Opelika, Lee County. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Photo courtesy of the Museum of East Alabama)

A German AEG Magnetophone recording device from the World War II era. Lee County native John Orr brought this technology back to the United States after the war and adapted it to establish ORRadio, a successful magnetic audio tape firm in Opelika. (German Wehrmacht tape recorder AEG Magnetophon Tonschreiber B with AEG 2-hole bobbies, built after 1942, from a German radio station in World War II. (Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps, Saint Petersburg, George Shuklin, Wikipedia)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.