DeBence Antique Music World, Mechanical music museum in Franklin, United States.
DeBence Antique Music World houses more than 100 mechanical musical instruments created between 1850 and 1940. The collection includes music boxes, band organs, player pianos, and coin-operated machines.
Jake and Elizabeth DeBence began collecting in the 1940s and opened their collection to the public in a barn outside Franklin in 1965. The museum later moved into the former G.C. Murphy building in downtown.
The collection displays music boxes and street organs that visitors can watch in action, showing how people once enjoyed mechanical music in homes and public spaces. These working machines reveal the personal connection people had with automated entertainment.
The museum sits in a former department store building in downtown Franklin with easy foot traffic access. Visitors can see regular demonstrations of working instruments during their visit, which show how the machines operate.
The museum holds one of the last working Berry-Wood Orchestrions from 1912, which uses paper rolls to control ten different instruments at once. This rare machine demonstrates an early form of music automation.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
