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The Rock County Historical Society and Leicher family descendants celebrated the official dedication of the Luverne Automobile Saturday afternoon in the History Center showroom.
The 1911 Luverne Thirty is one of only two known Luverne automobiles in existence, and one now resides — appropriately – in Luverne.
Dan Anderson, Hills, and his cousin, Tanya Light, Luverne, worked with their Leicher relatives to pool resources for the Historical Society to buy the car from a collector in Minneapolis.
“It belongs in Luverne,” Light said. “It belongs in the History Center, where everyone can enjoy it — including the cousins. This way they can go and take their kids and grandchildren to see it.”
Light and Anderson are great-grandchildren of Al Leicher, who owned and operated the Luverne Automobile Co. with his brother, Ed Leicher, from 1904 to 1917.
The Luverne Thirty arrived in the History Center showroom on Nov. 30, 2021, and on Saturday roughly 60 Leicher descendants, wearing color-coded T-shirts to designate their family affiliations, attended the dedication ceremony.
“They were all just so excited to be included in this to be part of history this way,” Anderson said after the weekend.
“I was tickled to see all the younger generations here to learn about the family heritage and keep the Leicher story alive.”
He said the family has been grateful to the Historical Society for keeping detailed records of the local company and its founders.
“Without the History Center and what it’s doing, that would all be lost,” Anderson said. “How many young people in the community even know that a car was built in Luverne?”
In a picnic at the Luverne City Park that afternoon, the family passed a bucket to collect donations to have the car’s upholstery repaired and to support the Rock County Historical Society.