TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — Auction lovers and history buffs alike will want to head to the Wabash Valley Fairgrounds June 11 through 13 as the Mari Hulman George estate goes up for auction.
Items from the Hulman family’s personal collection will be available including more than 1,000 books from the family library. Generations of furniture, collectibles, Cook’s Beer and much more will be up for grabs.
Racing fans will likely be interested in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway memorabilia. The IMS had been owned by Tony Hulman and Hulman & Co. since 1945; however, Tony George and his three sisters sold the home of the Indy 500 to Roger Penske in January of last year.
Hulman Family representative Bill Metzger said the auction’s main item will be a sterling silver statue of a dog owned by Mari until her death in 2018; however, Metzger’s favorite items include vintage signs and advertisements from a local company.
“I think there’s a couple things that one, for me, are really interesting,” he said. “A lot of the old Clabber Girl advertisements, the signage, the labels that were used on canned goods. We’ve got a big collection of those things and I find that very interesting.”
Francis and Herman Hulman formed Hulman & Co. in the 1850’s. Some 40 years later, the company started manufacturing baking powder. Clabber Girl really became big once Tony Hulman Jr. started a nationwide sales campaign in 1930. The company sold to B&G Foods in 2019.
