private industry musical instruments founded dallas texas august 1901 founder brook mays headquarters dallas texas u.s. number of locations five retail locations plus one office showroom key people jim tener coo products guitars musical instruments services instrument rentals website http brookmays.com footnotes references 1 2 brook mays music company known generally as brook mays is a well known and established dallas texas based retailer of musical instruments sheet music and supplies for individuals bands & orchestras . brook mays was founded by its namesake investor brook mays who saw the opportunity to open a piano dealership in dallas and opened the chain s original store in august 1901 . at the time it dealt exclusively in pianos and became the largest such dealership in its region . brook mays was the only major music company in the area to survive the great depression . in the 1940s the company expanded its wares to include organs sheet music and band instruments . extensive remodeling following world war ii until the early 1950s led to expansion in the downtown dallas store which fostered the development of its band instrument division . it became the largest supplier of band instruments to school groups in the southern united states . brook mays often had partnerships with school districts and offered them bulk discounts . the company grew rapidly with renewed interest in electrical instruments and had over 50 stores plus a mail order and e commerce division to serve international customers . each store had access to extensive instrument repair facilities as well as the largest instrument rental service in the southwest united states . brook mays slogan is brook mays means music . in 2003 first act inc. a competitor that sells its instruments at mass market retailers sued brook mays and was awarded 16.7 million . according to first act brook mays discouraged patrons from buying first act s very inexpensive instruments . this claim was based on a flyer that brook mays sent out to band directors and consumers . 3 in 2006 a judge awarded first act the full amount of their claim . in july 2006 brook mays music group filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy citing poor back to school and holiday sales . 4 in august 2006 after 105 years of business the liquidation of brook mays was ordered . effective december 1 2006 a new entity began operating at least one of the old brook mays music stores using the name brook mays . the entity now operates five retail stores two in the dfw metroplex plus the company office and showroom and three in the greater houston area . citation needed the store continues to rent band instruments to schools . notes edit us business directory . infousa.com . 2008 06 06 . missing or empty url help ; access date requires url help the history of brook mays music company . brook mays . retrieved 2008 08 16 . check date values in date help music retailer to fight verdict . houston chronicle . 2005 12 06 . archived from the original on may 21 2011 . retrieved 2007 08 06 . halkias maria 2006 07 14 . brook mays seeks a quick chapter 11 sale . the dallas morning news . archived from the original on march 11 2007 . retrieved 2007 08 06 . external links edit official company website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title brook mays & oldid 743419152 categories retail companies of the united statescompanies based in dallasprivately held companies based in texascompanies that have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcymusic retailers of the united stateshidden categories pages using web citations with no urlpages using citations with accessdate and no urlcs1 errors datesall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from august 2014 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 9 october 2016 at 15 34 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view