Justice P. Seeburg, whose name became a staple in jukeboxes, was in the Amusement Industry Hall of Fame’s inaugural legacy class. Born in Sweden in 1887, Seeburg immigrated to the United States in search of a better life.
According to Jukebox History, he started his career as an apprentice at a piano factory and eventually began the J.P. Seeburg Piano Co., which made automatic pianos through 1927, when he started making coin-op phonographs.
In 1928, he was one of the first manufacturers of a multi-select jukebox with the introduction of the Audiophone. Though he handed the reins of the company to his son Noel in 1934, Seeburg remained instrumental in developing new products until his death in 1958 at age 87.
The company continued making popular jukes into the 1970s and was known to be an industry innovator. It was, in fact, the first to produce a phonograph that played then-new 45rpm records with its LPC-480 model.
