Fifty-five years ago, on April 18, 1953, Gene Fox started a business in Clinton in a one room building that has grown over those years to become the present Fox Family Dealerships. After Gene Fox's untimely death, Margaret Fox Best managed the business until her retirement in 1998 - when she turned over operations to their four children. Ronnie Fox, Stanley Fox, Patricia Hogue, and Becky Grubb now operate Fox Toyota and Fox Chevrolet - with the help of a new generation of the Fox family as well as numerous long-time employees, some of whom have been with the company for many years.
On Friday, April 18, 2008, the Fox family invited everyone to come celebrate with them at the grand opening of the new Fox Toyota facility at the I-75 interchange. It is an impressive facility in an excellent location. Ronnie Fox, President of the company, explained that the family had owned that property long before the interstate was built and that the families had their own homes on that land. When Toyota insisted that they build a new facility and that it be in a more visible location than downtown Clinton, the family decided to sacrifice their homes in order to utilize what had become a prime business location in order to build the new facilty. "Toyota wanted us to move closer to Knoxville - but we insisted that we were going to stay in Anderson County", Ronnie Fox explained. The result is the new Toytoa dealership location on I-75 - and the re-utilization of the previous facility in downtown Clinton as the new home of Fox Chevrolet.
The day-long opening celebration was kicked off with an early morning Anderson County Chamber of Commerce coffee and ribbon cutting. Some photos from that event are featured here.
