The Seventies

The early seventies saw some more expansion to the docks. With our new office dock in place we converted the old office to a shop. Phil Petars had been working in Theodosia for a year or so but came to work at Pontiac around 1970. A Johnson Outboard was the motor to have in those days, but since Theodosia Marina already had them, all Dad could get was Mercury. They had a reputation of running really fast, just not very long. Phil attended Mercury service school, we stocked up on parts, a few motors, and were up and running as a full service Mercury dealership.

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Dad next built a 10 stall dock that was located across the cove from the main dock below the abandoned steps near the old swimming area. The slips were 12 feet wide which we thought would surely house 2 boats......RIGHT!  It later became part of the 400 dock which was destroyed in the big storm of 2013. He also added what we thought at the time was a huge dock.  It had 10 stalls with 16 feet wide slips that we thought would surely house 2 really big boats. Again.....RIGHT! This dock is still being used and is slips 301-320.

Left to right, 200 dock, main office, 100 dock and 300 dock today.

In the mid 70s when Johnna and I arrived, Dad had plans for more expansion. We bought the property directly across highway W from the boat dock road with plans to build a motel and restaurant. Property prices had gone up a bit as the 25 acres Dad bought cost $25,000. I guess Mom was right. He should have bought it when it was $100 per acre a few years before. We also had plans to enlarge the marina. We weren't able to build the motel at this time but we did expand the dock. I drew up the plans and submitted them to the Corps for the dock to be constructed. The new dock had 14 double slips, seven on each side to hold two boats in each slip. They were 14 feet wide and again had plenty of room for 2 boats. Steve Purcell joined our construction crew and he, my brother Dan, and I built the dock which is now called the 100 dock.

100 dock being built in spring, 1976.

Part of our motel plans included building a restaurant. The restaurant in the park was closed at the time and since we weren't going to be building a new one with our motel at that time we made a deal with Clyde Oberlin and bought the Green Trees Cafe. We changed the name to The Galley, hired the best cook in the country, Argie Wilbanks, and we were in business.

The lake level stayed pretty close to conservation pool in 1971 and 1972 only dropping down to about 640 in the winter time and then coming back up to normal pool for the rest of the year. In 1973, however, the lake reached its highest since we bought the dock. It got all the way up to 691 by midyear and remained above normal for most of the summer. In the winter of 1973, it came back up again to a level of about 675 and dropped back to normal and then up again to nearly 680 in the middle of the summer. It was a real roller coaster ride until about mid 1975 when it finally settled down for nearly a whole year. In 1976 Johnna and I bought some land to build a house on. Naturally by now land prices were up again as we paid $2000 per acre for our 8 acres. I enlisted the help of an old retired carpenter in Pontiac named Caskey Norfleet to help me and we took on the building project. It was a similar style house that my brother had built, one and a half stories. My total carpenter experience up to this point was building docks. Caskey taught me how to frame a house. In fact when we got to the second floor he said, "I can't handle going up and down the ladder any more so you're on your own now, Son."  It turned out pretty well. Several years later we sold that house to Tom and Mary Cline.

Our building project on our new house went so well that winter the next year we bought some property and decided to build a spec house on it. Caskey Norfleet had decided to move back to the city so we bought his place...a mobile home with a garage on 40 acres. We sold the mobile home and moved it off the property and began building our house. My brother, Dan, had started working with Jim Barron in the plumbing and electric and heat and air-conditioning business part time. We finished the house in the spring of 1978.

Our spec house, original garage on the left.

Dan really enjoyed the construction business and he did not want to go back to work at the boat dock. So, Johnna and I put together a deal to buy the business and on May 1, 1978 we became the sole owners of Pontiac Boat Dock.

               Written By Cap'n T. Morgan