The Auerbach family was among the first Jewish residents in Salt Lake City and operated a department store in downtown Salt Lake City from 1864 to 1977. Herbert Auerbach was the son of Samuel Auerbach, one of the founders of the company, and Eveline Brooks, the daughter of another prominent Jewish Salt Lake City family. Herbert S. Auerbach was born on October 4, 1882, in Salt Lake City, Utah. After graduating from high school in Salt Lake City in 1896, he attended classes in Germany and Switzerland receiving diplomas in industrial studies in 1898 and 1899. In 1905, Auerbach graduated from Columbia University with a degree in mining engineering and in the following year he earned a master's degree in electrometallurgy from Columbia University. Prior to serving as a major in the U.S. Army in World War I, he worked as a manager for mining, real estate and department store firms in Idaho, Colorado, and Utah.

Auerbach returned to his pre-war position as an executive in his family's Salt Lake City department store following World War I, and eventually became its president. In addition to his business interests, Auerbach was an avid amateur historian and collector of western Americana. Auerbach translated Father Escalante's journal, authored several articles in western history, and was president of the Utah Historical Society's Board of Control from 1936-1945. Additionally, Auerbach was a concert violinist, a poet, a composer of over one hundred ballads and religious songs, a philanthropist and a state legislator. Herbert S. Auerbach died on March 19, 1945.