It’s the end of another era as Trenton’s last gas station-with-full-service-garage shuts its doors, effective immediately. J.P. Forshee, who has operated Forshee’s Chevron since 1988, confirmed on Wednesday that he had sold the station to a Patel family partnership that will turn it into a convenience store, closing the garage end of the business. “They’re going to shut it down when I leave here today or tomorrow, when I get all the gas sold out,” said Forshee. “They’re going to spend about a quarter of a million dollars here on this place.” J.P. Forshee has sold his Chevron station/garage.
Forshee said the new owners plan to renovate completely and will keep the place closed for at least two months while that happens. He said he understands they will change the gas brand from Chevron to Shell.Of his two full-time store employees, said Forshee, one will continue working for the Patel partnership. Meanwhile, Bill Ervin, the mechanic who has worked for Forshee since he opened 28 years ago, will go into business on his own. “I gave him all my equipment in the garage, and he’s going to set it up and build him a place down on Highway 11,” said Forshee.
Forshee said he believed the new garage will be called Ervin’s Auto.
If it all seems sudden, Forshee said he and his wife, Liz, actually put the business on the market two years ago but hadn’t until now gotten any offers close enough to their asking price. “I did offer some people here in the county that’s in the garage business and talked to them, but they undoubtedly weren’t interested,” he said.
Forshee said he and Liz wanted to sell out so that they could retire to the Slygo farm where they raise cattle. “I turned 75 and she is 69, so I decided, well, with our age and everything, we need to get out and kindly enjoy life,” he said.
He said there were five partners in the Patel group that bought the business. “They’ve got about six or seven of these in Tennessee and Alabama,” he said. “I think this is the first one in Georgia.”
Forshee himself bought the gas station from Jim Morrison, who had it from Jack Atkins. Before going into the gas business, Forshee operated a car lot further west on Highway 136, near where the carwash is now located.
The Dade Planet thanks alert reader Bob Venable for the news tip that led to this story, and urges other alert readers to send news tips to robinfordwallace@tvn.net.
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