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Beginning
and Ending
I grew up in the village of Richwood, Ohio, where my father was the Chevrolet dealer until he retired in 1973 and sold the dealership to the Mills family. In 1998, the Richwood Gazette reported: The Mills sales team, John Moody, Steve Mills [right] and Ty Davis, are looking forward to celebrating the dealership's 25th anniversary. We've not the greatest salesmen, in the strictest sense of the word, said Mills, but we are great helpers. If you're looking for a car or truck, we'll make every effort to help you out. As far as I'm concerned, a long-term relationship is more important than a quick sale.
They
continued in business for another ten years. But then . . . And a week later, on October 8, 2008, the Gazette reported:
General Motors, as part of its 2009 bankruptcy reorganization, will be shutting down roughly a thousand dealerships around the country, many of them smaller operations like the one in Richwood. But Mills has already closed, one of the 401 GM dealers who voluntarily terminated their franchises in 2008 presumably because of poor business conditions.
I think back 45 years to the time when my father built the now-vacant facility. Below are some pictures I took then but have not yet shared with you.
After
the previous building was destroyed by fire
on June 10, 1964, we cleared away the debris and continued selling
cars from the same location. A house trailer parked beside the
used-car lot served as the temporary office.
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Red Connolly and Gene Cheney sometimes visited Waldo's desk; click here for a photo.
From
upstairs, I got this view of the service department. Devices
like air hoses and drop lights were suspended from the ceiling.
And vehicle tailpipes could be hooked up to hoses in the floor, so
that exhaust fans could carry the fumes away. In winter, this
allowed us to keep the big overhead doors closed, even with car
engines running indoors.
Six decades later, this area was filled with local residents attending a village council meeting. The photograph below by Kyle Meddles appeared in the Richwood Gazette of July 11, 2024.
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