MILLIANS: Pioneers in the car business

Published 8:00 am Friday, November 22, 2024

Wesley Edward (Zeke) Bass and William Edward (Rip) Robinson Jr. were double cousins, best buddies, competitors and pioneers in Milledgeville’s progression from horse and buggy days to the automobile age.

Zeke was born in 1902. Rip came along in 1903. Both were born in the Bass house on the corner of Jefferson and McIntosh. Rip grew up in the house across the street.

Zeke inherited his nickname from his father. Rip got his nickname from some of his college buddies who thought he slept a lot, like Rip Van Winkle.

Rip delighted in telling stories to his son, Ed Robinson III, about what he and Zeke had done and the places they had been in their younger days.

Such as going to South America as teenagers and work on a banana boat.

Or, go to Michigan and get a job in the fledging automobile industry.

Zeke and Rip went to Flint and worked at the Buick assembly factory, learning the car business from the ground up.

They met plenty of people who were not famous then but who would become titans in the automobile world. One was Walter Chrysler, the founder and namesake of the Chrysler Corporation.

They made quite an impression among co-workers as a couple of hard-working kids from down south. Zeke, in particular, could do something no one else could: Pick up one of the Buick 4-cylinder engines by himself and sit it in the chassis.

Zeke played football at the University of Georgia. He would be considered large, even by today’s football standards, at 300-plus pounds.

His daughter, Beth Rice, said Bass never graduated from UGA because one of his professors didn’t like football players. The professor told the class that if you were a football player, he would flunk you. So, Zeke left school in his senior year.

Ed Robinson III says he remembers when his daddy would go to buy new furniture, his mother would always say, “Make sure it’s big enough for Zeke to sit in.”

Rip played football at GMC with Wally Butts, a Milledgeville native who became a legendary coach for the Georgia Bulldogs.

For many years, Rip helped organize a birthday party in Milledgeville for Butts. Butts would bring some of his star Georgia players with him, including Heisman Trophy winner Frank Sinkwich and Charley Trippi.

Friends and ex-teammates would gather at GMC, eat oyster stew and steaks, and sing Happy Birthday to coach Butts.

Let’s back up a bit to the days when Zeke and Rip became competitors in the car business.

The fathers of both Zeke and Rip had been on the cutting edge of change. They went from selling mules and horses that pulled buggies to selling cars.

Zeke and Rip were fortunate sons, winding up with car dealerships. Zeke also had a John Deere tractor store.

Zeke inherited property that used to be called the Rose Farm. It was land that would one day be the site of a portion of Lake Sinclair.

He opened Bass Boathouse. But when his wife got sick, putting Zeke under a lot of stress, Beth Rice suggested to her dad that he sell. Otis Hogan wanted to buy it.

“Daddy says to me, ‘How much should we ask?’ ” Beth Rice said. “I said, ‘$20,000.’ We were just ready to get rid of it.”

Rice can laugh now at the bargain-basement price. The Hogans sold Bass Boathouse to the Anchors Marina owners in 2022 for considerably more.

Rip, meanwhile, took over his father’s car dealership, thankful that the days of horses and buggies lining the street of Milledgeville was over.

Ed Robinson remembers that his sister, Marion, always wanted a horse but never got one because his dad “had fooled with the last horse he was going to fool with.”

“My daddy was just the sweetest man who ever lived,” Ed said. “He never fussed. He never complained. He was nice to everybody.”

And Rip was a smart man. He had an undergraduate degree from Georgia, and law degrees from UGA and Columbia.

He trained passenger pigeons, sending notes to relatives in Hancock County via pigeon.

Rip was born, grew up, worked and raised a family within 250 feet on McIntosh Street.

But in their younger days, Rip — and Zeke — lived very adventuresome lives.

Wesley Edward (Zeke) Bass and William Edward (Rip) Robinson Jr. were two extraordinary men in the history of Milledgeville.

—Rick Millians, a 1970 Baldwin High grad, retired after working at newspapers in Georgia, Ohio, and South Carolina. Reach him at rdmillians@aol.com.