A lesson in patience and perseverance
Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Richard Rybka
Submitted Photos
Quinten Edward Lumpkin had a vision. He believed in family, community, the Golden Rule and the American dream. It was his vision that eventually led to a beautiful development of seaside-inspired homes on the shores of the Coosa River. Though he would never see the first home built, the lighthouse on the peninsula was built with him in mind.
He only had $21 to his name when “Buck,” as he’d been called since childhood, came home from the Navy in 1948. When he didn’t find a job in his hometown of Gadsden, he figured he’d just open his own business.
He found a storefront in downtown Gadsden that he could rent for $12.75 a month. Not wanting to use more than half the cash he had to live on, he got his brother-in-law to co-sign on a $150 loan. With that, he opened an engine repair and sales shop that evolved into Buck’s Boats.
The old storefront location didn’t work for long, though, as there was no rollup door to bring in merchandise. They had to turn boats on their sides to fit them through the standard doorway. It was so small that only three aluminum boats would fit inside, with enough extra room for five or six outboard motors.
They moved to a former Buick dealership, which gave them more space, but still only 10 boats fit in the showroom. In 1969, Buck borrowed enough money to purchase 13 acres on the shores of the Coosa River. He had sold his home to help raise the deposit on the property, so he and his wife, Pauline, had a partially sunken houseboat dredged up and pulled to the property.
They cleaned it up and lived there while they figured out how to fund the building of the store. The boats were sold and serviced under a revival tent they got when an evangelist, who was one of their customers, fell behind on his boat payments and offered the tent as a partial payment.
Always the creative thinker, Buck saw his chance to fund his building when he read an ad in the newspaper of a Gadsden foundry seeking bids to demolish their building. He bid $10.
The next lowest bid was $56,000 from a construction company. The foundry owner refused Buck’s bid, thinking he would likely not have the means to complete the work on time.
Undaunted, Buck took out a bond for $56,000 to protect the owner and completed the demolition with two weeks to spare. Then he took the parts and reassembled it on his own 13-acre plot of land.
After a 17-year career with Mercury Motors, Buck’s son, Tony, bought the business in 1989 and renamed it Buck’s Island. Now located just minutes from the shores of Neely Henry Lake, it boasts a staff of 33.
Three generations of the family are now involved in the business. Mary, his wife of 32 years, runs the day-to-day operations. Their daughter Katie is in the sales department, while another daughter, Angela, runs the service department with her master technician husband, Israel.
“As a kid, I loved being here as much as I do now,” says Angela. “I remember wandering around in the old attic space and seeing things brought back from other countries by my grandfather.” She also remembers the fun of jumping from boat to boat in the showroom, a love that her own daughter now shares.
Tony, too, grew up spending his days with his dad at the business. “We didn’t have money for daycare,” explains Tony. “Mom worked in the sales tax office for the State of Alabama, so I’d come to work every day with Dad until I started school. He took a broom one day, cut the handle in half and handed it to me and said to get to work. I helped in the business all the way through high school.”
One day after he had earned a degree in industrial design from Auburn University, Tony asked his dad how he had learned his business skills. “I knew my dad had quit school in the 8th grade to support his mother and sisters after his dad died. So I said, ‘Dad, how’d you learn to run a business?’ He said, ‘Son, I learned in Sunday school. I learned that if you treat customers the way you want to be treated, you’ll never want for business.’ ”
That Golden Rule philosophy still drives the business today. “We do a lot of business – about 10 times the business the average boat dealer does. What that means is that we have more stock than most,” explains Tony. “We also don’t sell boats. We help facilitate people in buying a boat and guide them through the process. We try to step into the customer’s shoes and have empathy with the customer. We just treat them like we’d want to be treated.”
Yet another vision
So what does Buck’s Island, the boat sales and service business, have to do with Buck’s Island, the housing development? In short, it was Buck’s dream from the time he purchased the land that one day he would move the boat business to build homes on the water’s edge.
“My dad had told me about his vision of building homes on the 13 acres whenever city water was available. We had to get new zoning regulations passed to allow the houses to be built the way we wanted,” said Tony.
He partnered with a builder and in 2000, built the first 10 houses in what they called Harbor Point, a peninsula on the grounds of the property. Three years later, they moved the boat business to a temporary rental building in Rainbow City so they could tear down the building to make room for the rest of the subdivision on the 13-acre plot.
As they were building the new housing on the property, they began building their new boat showroom and service center in a new location on Highway 77. The highway location has provided greater visibility and boosted their business.
The builder has almost completed the last home on the Buck’s Island development, capping the number at 47 homes. The lighthouse Tony built to draw attention to the property on the banks of the Coosa is also a tribute to the man who inspired the development of the brightly colored waterfront homes.
He loved visiting the Caribbean islands and guided Tony in planning the development. “He said to make everyone feel like they’re on vacation when they come home every day,” explains Tony. Sadly, Buck passed away in 1993 before seeing his vision become reality.
What Buck started with his $150 investment has fueled a deeply rooted passion for giving back to community. Buck’s Island sponsors Fish Fest, a day of fishing and seminars, and sponsors more than 40 high school fishing teams. “They’re our future,” Mary underscores.
Editor’s Note: You can find Buck’s Island at 4500 Hwy 77. Their inventory includes Bentley and Crest pontoon boats, as well as Skeeter, G3, Avid, Falcon and RescueONE Connector Boats. They’ve also added fishing kayaks and a tackle shop.
is ready to join a first responders team.
See a need and fill it
Buck’s earns worldwide reputation for first-responder boat
Story by Roxann Edsall
Coming up with a product that is sold worldwide and helps first responders to be safer and more efficient is something to be proud of. Southside native and business owner, Tony Lumpkin, is profoundly thankful for such an opportunity.
He developed a boat that will connect together with others to build a large floating platform of any shape or size. The design is particularly useful for water rescues, recoveries, dive operations and flood evacuations.
Called RescueONE Connector Boats, they are virtually impossible to tip over when connected, according to Lumpkin. Sold by his Marine One Corporation and assembled at Buck’s Island, the boats are used by emergency rescue teams worldwide. “They’re all over the world and in every state except Alaska,” says Lumpkin. “The Thailand navy has 105 of them, Philippines has 35. We sell about 100 of them a year.”
The idea got started in 1992 when two guys from the Calhoun County Rescue Squad came in to Buck’s Island looking at jon boats for their rescue operation. “They couldn’t find anything that fit their needs,” explains Lumpkin.
“So I listened to what they did and even went out with them on a rescue operation so I could understand what they needed. Then I worked on designing one for them.”
The boats are specially designed to hook together through an interlocking frame design. Figure eight lashings give the connection added stability. Add-ons include a retractable dive platform, a portable fire pump and a stacked boat trailer that can haul two connector boats at the same time.
“In many cases, volunteer rescue squads give their own time to give families closure,” tells Lumpkin. “If I can make something to make their jobs a little easier, I’m happy to do it.”
