Bob’s Body Shop Owners Still Working To Clear The Property

If you’ve been down Highway 70 between Cookeville and Baxter, you might have noticed some major changes.

A long-standing Cookeville business hoping to complete a major clean-up by the end of the year.

Bob’s Body Shop closed last December. Owner Bill Grogran said in order to have a better chance of selling the property, he decided to clean up 60 years of cars, parts, and other materials.

“We crushed 2700 cars to begin with and then we loaded up about a dozen of these big steel dumpsters,” Grogan said. “And at the end, we took a bulldozer and scraped the ground and got a lot of loose parts, and I loaded 80 dump truck loads, so quite a bit of stuff to get out.”

Grogan said there is still more to remove, including 30 truck beds and a large number of tires. He said they hope to finish clearing out by the end of this year.

Grogan said while he has been happy to help the community by fixing what some say is an eyesore, it has been a bittersweet process. He said Bob’s Body Shop has been part of his family for decades, but it came time for him and his wife to retire.

“I miss my customers,” Grogan said. “I had such a great group of customers that had been really loyal to me through the years and that was the hardest part is not being able to see them. But I’m thankful that I was able to be in business and get to meet so many people in the community.”

Grogan said he has one piece of property for sale right now, that was originally used as a parking lot. He said the property with the body shop and salvage lot is currently not up for sale.