One of the biggest surprises – and announcements – from Mayor Tom Henry’s State of the City address had little to do with city government at all.AUBURN – Orange cones, the universal summer sign of progress, line the county road alongside the Kruse Auction Park south of Auburn.
DeKalb County recently launched an expansion of a short stretch of County Road 11A, the part that bears the brunt of thousands of vehicles pouring off Interstate 69 every Labor Day weekend for Kruse International’s automobile and collectible auctions.
“That’s going to improve the value of everything around here,” Dean Kruse said.
DeKalb County is investing in Kruse as the Kruse family has invested in the county over the decades.
Dean Kruse estimates 85 percent of the people who come to the auction are repeat customers. “Even when I die, it’ll still be going on,” he said. “It’s like an homage.”
A university study done years ago estimated the Kruse auction and unaffiliated Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival events on and around Labor Day inject tens of millions of dollars into northeast Indiana, Kruse said.
Whatever the dollar figure, the Kruse family, and most notably Dean Kruse, have had an enormous influence.
When Kruse and his father, Russell Kruse, held their first collector car auction in 1971, about 17,000 people attended. The success of the auction since is hard to measure, said Richard Martin, executive director of the DeKalb County Visitors Bureau.
“It’s just hard to say how much it brings in,” Martin said. “It’d definitely have an impact on Labor Day weekend if the auction was not there. No question about that.”
It’s also hard to determine how many people come to Auburn for the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival – of which Kruse has been a major supporter over the years – the auction, or both. Hotels often fill, and restaurants do brisk business, Martin said.
Kruse also has left his mark in the form of the museums he’s opened in DeKalb County in recent years.
Kruse opened a military history museum across the interstate from the auction park several years ago and added several other auto museums to the complex. His other plans for development in the area have stalled, but the museums attract a steady stream of visitors, Martin said.
As with the auction, it’s hard to say how many people who travel to Kruse’s military museum also visit the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum while they’re in Auburn, Martin said.
“What he’s done for the community is tremendous,” Martin said. “He’s basically kind of put Auburn on the map.”
