Auburn Indiana

5 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3 activity, and maybe some housing with it. “There’s going to be some real excitement that’s going to happen when announcements are made here.” Despite all the major changes coming to Auburn in the coming years, the city is still home to a wealth of history and culture. First established as a city in 1900, Auburn rose to prominence as the City of Classics. Philanthropist and businessman Charles Eckhart opened his Eckhart Carriage Company in the city during the late 1800s and along with the help of his sons Frank and Morris established the Auburn Automotive Company in 1900. “The little company flourished into a major boutique, handmade, automobile company,” Anderson recalls. The company was soon taken over by E.L. Cord, who acquired the Deusenburg brand. “They were engineers and racers and they created the finest of luxury engines and automobiles. These were vehicles that not the one percent drove, but the 0.1 percent. These were the most expensive vehicles of the time period. They outclassed and out- competed every other vehicle along the road. “So our small town had a global impact because the Auburn Automotive Company had dealerships in 89 different countries. People still come to Auburn as an automotive Mecca because it was worldwide. This small town created some of the finest cars of American history and even European history.” The city’s automotive history is memorialized inside the Auburn Cord Deusenburg Automotive Museum, which Anderson calls “the automotive church.” Constructed in 1930 as the international headquarters for the Auburn Automobile Company, the building is lauded as one of the greatest examples Katie Mullins