Atlantic City High School - located at the junction of Albany and Atlantic Avenues - was designed by John T. Rowland, Jr., and built at a cost of over $2,000,000. For many years, it boasted nationally competitive swimming and basketball teams.

In the last days of 1922, the organ building firm of Reuben Midmer & Son, Inc. signed a contract to provide the school's auditorium with an organ. Its coded opus number, 4920, indicates the year 1923 ("49" in the opus number indicates the 49th year of trading as Reuben Midmer & Son). However, the contract was actually signed on December 27, 1922. The instrument was housed in two splayed chambers, one on each side of the stage. Each chamber's depth varied from between five to 13 feet, with an overall height of 26 feet. The single tone opening in each was 14 feet wide.

The instrument to be contained in these chambers was designed by State Senator Emerson L. Richards, a native of Atlantic City, for whom pipe organs were a passion and pre-occupation. With 65 stops (including two melodic percussions) and 73 ranks, the organ he conceived was not only the largest ever installed in a U.S. public school but it helped mark the beginning of the turning point in the tonal design of pipe organs in north America.

Richards later refined his ideas, improved upon them, and broadened their scope when he designed the world's largest pipe organ for Atlantic City's monumentally-scaled Convention Hall (this instrument was also built by the Midmer firm, although it had been renamed Midmer-Losh in 1924). His unpaid career as what he called an "Organ Architect" and adviser spanned five decades and his influence earned him the title of "Commander-in-Chief of the American Revolution in Organ Building" from organ historian David Fuller. In addition to the various organs he designed, Richards wrote some 80 articles for organ journals in which he set out his design ideas and the reasoning behind them. He also reported his visits to European organs and wrote extensively about the music of J. S. Bach.

The High School organ was what Richards called a "combination organ", consisting of both straight and extended stops. At the time, this was his favored type of instrument as he believed that it provided flexibility with economy. Later, however, he preferred only "straight" organs.