Cloudy skies. Low 64F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..
Cloudy skies. Low 64F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
After the 2023 season comes to an end the toboggan run at Pokagon State Park will receive a $1.3 million renovation.
The classics were back in Auburn this weekend. Car enthusiasts share stories Thursday afternoon in the parking lot of the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum.
“Sold” stickers are now on the Avilla East Industrial Park’s for-sale sign. The town recently sold its remaining 55 acres to an unnamed group of investors who plan to build a manufacturing and fabrication plant.
After the 2023 season comes to an end the toboggan run at Pokagon State Park will receive a $1.3 million renovation.
The classics were back in Auburn this weekend. Car enthusiasts share stories Thursday afternoon in the parking lot of the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum.
“Sold” stickers are now on the Avilla East Industrial Park’s for-sale sign. The town recently sold its remaining 55 acres to an unnamed group of investors who plan to build a manufacturing and fabrication plant.
LAKE JAMES — The winter attraction that brings thousands to Steuben County during the winter, the toboggan slide at Pokagon State Park, is getting its first major upgrade since the mid-1980s.
The Indiana State Budget Committee on Wednesday approved additional funding to upgrade the Pokagon State Park Toboggan Run, said Rep. Denny Zent, R-Angola.
Zent said the more than $1.3 million in state funding will be used to replace PVC piping under the toboggan run with copper pipe. This update will be one of the largest modifications undertaken since the rebuild of the two tracks, and construction of the rental and warming facility in the mid-1980s.
“The toboggan run is a unique local treasure, providing great fun and lasting memories for people of all ages,” Zent said. “This state funding will help keep the tracks open for years to come.”
The refrigerated toboggan run at Pokagon, one of only two in the Midwest, draws nearly 90,000 riders each season. The run features a 30-foot tower and drops nearly 90 feet over a quarter mile filled with dips and valleys.
Terry Coleman, director of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of State Parks, said he expected the work to start after this season is over in 2023.
The toboggan slide was built in the 1930s by the Boys of the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, who constructed it as a wintertime attraction. Eventually, after the CCC left Pokagon due to World War II, the toboggan slide was converted into an attraction for public use.
ACD Festival weekend engulfs Auburn
AUBURN — The Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival broke from tradition during its annual kick-off luncheon on Thursday by presenting one of its biggest honors to an organization and not an individual.
In presenting the Del Mar Johnson Friend of the Festival Award Mike Boswell, Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival board president said “this is a first for us.”
Boswell presented to the award to the Auburn Police Department for all of its hard work over the past 66 years.
“The men and women of the Auburn Police Department spend countless hours making sure the festival is safe and secure,” Boswell said. “Without their help this couldn’t happen.”
Accepting the honor on behalf of the Auburn Police Department was Chief Cory Heffelfinger and Lt. Martin McCoy.
McCoy, who has worked the festival for 30 years, thanked the festival for the honor.
He said the award goes to all of the department’s officers past and present who have been a part of helping to make the festival a success.
“We just kind of manage it,” McCoy said. “We all enjoy it.”
ACD Festival officials were expecting large crowds for this year’s festival activities.
Classic cars, muscle cars, street rods, and more began to filter into downtown Auburn early Friday morning as more than 700 cars were expected for the annual cruise-in. The crowd stayed Friday night for the on-stage entertainment as Hubie Ashcraft and Whoa, Man! took the stage.
This year’s festival included an expanded three-day auction at Worldwide Auctioneers headquarters on the west side of Auburn. The auction featured over 300 “high quality” automobiles according to John Kruse, principal and auctioneer with Worldwide Auctioneers.
Large crowds are expected for today’s Parade of Classics and the other events that will fill out the day in Auburn.
Avilla continues to see success with its industrial park
AVILLA — With one new industrial park already filled and nearing completion, the Avilla Redevelopment Commission is already at least thinking about another, similar project.
Meeting in special session Wednesday, the Avilla Town Council awarded a bid to Fleming Excavating for $1.4 million to do that completion infrastructure work at its East Industrial Park.
Fleming had the lowest of the four bids submitted.
The town is short just more than $97,000 of direct funding for the project.
The town is using $548,000 it received in the last 55-acre plot of the new industrial land, $440,000 in CEDIT funds, $300,000 in grant funds from the Noble County Economic Development Corp. Investment Trust Fund and a $21,815 grant from I&M Power.
Town Manager Tena Woenker said the town could use TIF funds to make up the shortfall, since the industrial park is in that TIF district.
But Woenker said the quickness in which the industrial park was filled with new manufacturing has the RDC, which allocates TIF funds, already contemplating expanding the new industrial park, which is located to the southeast of the S.R. 3 and S.R. 8 intersection.
“We’re having such great success, it’s worth their time to look to the future,” Woenker said.
Hometown Hero banners coming to Kendallville
KENDALLVILLE — Northeast Indiana has been getting patriotic, and Kendallville is joining the group.
Kendallville will run its own “Hometown Hero” banner program, allowing people to purchase street-pole banners honoring a local military service member, joining other nearby communities including LaGrange, Garrett and Huntertown who have launched similar programs recently.
Historic Downtown Kendallville, the city’s official Main Street organization, is currently taking sponsorship orders for the banners.
They’ve been a hot item, with most of the slots already spoken for.
“I’ve been getting requests for it because other communities do it. It’s new. We’ve got 26 street pole banners and I think I’ve already sold 18 of them,” Main Street Manager Kristen Johnson said. “It’s been pretty popular so far.
“I announced them a week ago Friday and by that following Monday I had already sold like 10,” she said.
The banners are available to honor local veterans and first responders in the community. Banners are $125 each, and there are 26 street pole banners in the downtown corridor, so supply is limited.
Banners will go up after Christmas, Johnson said, and stay on display for a few months. Once they’re taken down, purchasers can collect their banners and take them home.
The $125 cost covers production of the banners, with a portion of the proceeds going to support Historic Downtown Kendallville and future downtown decor, Johnson said.
High winds bring down the Auburn Garrett Drive-in
GARRETT — When Laura Glaser set up a GoFundMe page to restore the wind-damaged Auburn-Garrett Drive-In a couple days ago, she had no hard figures to use as a goal.
While the original $4,000 target goal was easily surpassed, theater owner Julie Yarde expects costs to be immensely higher.
Yarde said Glaser, her daughter-in-law, set up the account to get the ball rolling, knowing full well a lot more will be needed.
“We used a lower amount to start,” said Yarde. With no hard figures, she is still trying to figure out what is covered, insurance caps and with no rock-hard costs, it was hard to decide where to begin.
Monday’s storm across the area dropped the curtains for the season at the Auburn-Garrett Drive-In north of Garrett.
Strong west winds took down a good portion of the 40-by-80-foot movie screen in an instant, Yarde said. She was watching the approaching storm from the west window of her business at J.Y. Design & Print next door.
How much money it will take to bring the screen back is unknown.
Ohio man arrested for using fake gun in robbery
ANGOLA — An Ohio man is facing multiple felony charges related to burglaries that occurred around last Christmas, including one where he allegedly confronted a property owner and friend with a plastic, toy pistol.
Investigators with the Steuben County Sheriff’s Office used DNA samples found on evidence to arrest Donald E. Hammons, 44, Delphos, Ohio, on Wednesday.
He was jailed on charges including two counts of Level 4 burglary of a dwelling, Level 5 felony burglary, two counts of Level 5 felony attempted robbery, one count of Level 6 felony auto theft and one count of Class A misdemeanor theft.
In the first incident, on Dec. 24, 2021, a property owner on Golden Lake Road contacted police about finding a man, Hammons, in a pole barn by the owner and his neighbor, who were going in to retrieve some tools.
On Jan. 1, 2022, other owners of property south of Angola found cabins on their grounds to have been broken into. At one property, a tractor was stolen and taken to a neighbor’s property, court records said.
The penalty for a Level 4 felony is between 2-12 years in prison with an advisory sentence of 6 years. For a Level 5 felony the sentence is 1-6 years in prison. A Level 6 felony carries a prison term of 6 months to 2 1/2 years. Each also carries a possible fine of $10,000.
Security feature left off of Steuben Judicial Center plans
ANGOLA — Steuben County Commissioners on Monday made cuts to safety features in the new judicial center as they continued to finalize details for the new facility being built at the corner of East South Street and South Martha Street.
In an effort to cut down on costs — even after construction estimates have come in nearly $1.5 million under the original estimates — a sally port and fencing have been trimmed from the project.
The estimated cost reduction is about $450,000 for the sally port and $200,000 for the fencing.
In Monday’s special meeting of the commissioners to deal mainly with matters pertaining to the judicial center, the move to remove the two security features was approved by a 2-1 vote, with commissioners Wil Howard and Ken Shelton voting to not make the expenditures and Lynne Liechty voting no.
“I think if we don’t do the sally port we’re going to regret it down the road,” Liechty said.
A sally port is a secured entry area that would be used only by law enforcement to transport prisoners in and out of the new courthouse. The fencing would have not only provided security for personnel using the facility, but would have tied into the design of the building by incorporating brick columns.
“I was looking forward to the opportunity for a secure sally port for inmate transports for obvious security and weather issues,” Sheriff R.J. Robinson said. “A sally port in this day and age lends more opportunity for timely transports and out-of-site loading and unloading.”
When final bids are presented for the project, Howard asked that the sally port and fencing be included as alternates for possible inclusion.
“I am disappointed in the decision and I understand that this decision is financially based. My hope is that there is always a possibility for a sally port to be implemented if the funds are found to be present before the build begins,” Robinson said.
After the meeting, Liechty said the cost of adding a sally port and the fencing at a later date would only guarantee higher costs. She said the approximately $700,000 in additional cost now would barely impact property taxes needed to pay for the building.
The final estimate of the cost of the new judicial center came in at $26.5 million, which included all costs, soft and hard. Initially the estimates came in at nearly $28 million. Once soft costs — furnishings and the like — were added, the price tag was around $30 million.
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