James Quinney Spillers

Prominent Lake County Land Developer Passes Away at 92 James Q. Spillers was born on October 28, 1917 in Selma, Alabama. As a child, he grew up in Wachula, Florida along with his two brothers, Bill, and Art and a sister, Eunice and his dog named pal. His favorite pastimes were fishing and hunting along the Peace River. His brother Bill even wrote a song about him entitled “The Peace River Kid”. James served two tours of duty in the United States Army where he was promoted to First Sergeant of Marne division (3rd Infantry Division). He was in the US Army Corps of Engineers. They built bridges during the war to help our troops get to where they needed to go. He was also instrumental in winning the “Battle of The Bulge” among numerous other battles. When the war was over, he did not want to wait for the ship that was to transport the men home, so he made a deal with a man who was about to set sail for the U.S.A. and managed to get home before his fellow soldiers. He came home to visit his wife Bonnie and their 9 month old daughter (Bonita) and relocated to Eau Gallie, Florida where, for a short time, he fished the Indian River for a living. He soon decided he wanted more for his family, which had now grown by one more daughter (JoAnn), and moved on to Tampa, Florida where he tried several different jobs…. He even tried raising chickens and owned a small grocery store. He also enrolled in some college classes. He soon met a man who was a land developer and he owned a dredge which they used to fill in swamp land with beautiful white sand that they pumped out from under the muck in the swamp and marshland. This would not only leave beautiful property where there had been useless swampland, but a nice lake as well. The fishing would become really great in these lakes after they were cleaned up. Soon Mr. Spillers had the opportunity to buy his own dredge and it came along with a job already in progress in which the previous owner was unable to produce enough sand to complete the job. Mr. Spillers bought that dredge in Lake County and finished that job and had money to spare. This is now the setting for many fine homes along Lake Shore Drive between Tavares and Eustis. This was around 1948. Mr. Spillers moved his young family, wife Bonnie, and daughters Bonita and JoAnn to Tavares. Soon after, in 1951, his daughter Linda joined the ranks. The girls all attended Tavares Elementary School and later moved to Mt. Dora where they attended Mt. Dora High School. Now, if you live on a lake in Lake County, there is a pretty good chance that your home sits on land that James Spillers put there. If you have a favorite fishing hole, it is probably the hole where the dredge pumped sand from years ago to fill in your beautiful beaches and lots. Whether you drive down Lake Shore Drive between Tavares and Eustis or Tavares and Mt. Dora, or along Hwy. 441 where the old Mt. Dora shopping center lies (yes, that bottomless lake is a dredge hole), and various other jobs from Astor to Clermont, you can bet that James Spillers has been there. You would be hard pressed if you found a lake in Lake County where he hasn’t had his dredge working. He also did large jobs in Cocoa Beach, St. Augustine, and numerous other vicinities throughout central Florida. Around 1965, along with the late Ralph Jones Sr., of Eustis who worked in the tax assessors office, and Dale Dillard, of the former “H&D Auto Parts” in Eustis, Mr. Spillers bought and developed a huge tract of land at Astor bordering Lake and Volusia Counties on the St. Johns River which they named “Holiday Haven Campsites”. He used the dredge to dig the canals on which all of these campsites (homesites) now nestle. Around 1967, Jim and Bonnie, his wife, built a home, in Holiday Haven which burned in 1976. State regulations were getting so tight that it was almost impossible to get permits to pump sand from the swamps, lakes, and rivers anymore. Isn’t it ironic that, now, they are dredging out lakes to clean them up, and back then they were concerned that this is what was ruining them? On completion of Holiday Haven Campsites, Mr. Spillers retired his dredge and started a whole new venture in “BEEKEEPING”, along with his son-in-law, Clair Thornburg. This was in 1975, and Mr. Spillers kept bees until he retired in 1986. Migrating the bees allover the state and into Wisconsin, and North Dakota as well as Missouri proved to be a very exiting and rewarding time for Mr. Spillers. Bonnie, the love of his life and wife of 53 years, passed away in 1995. He enjoyed a very large and close family of his three daughters Bonita, JoAnn, and Linda… Their husbands, Gene Sarinski, Clair Thornburg, and Roy Bomar, 7 grandchildren, 22 great grandchildren, and 1 great great granddaughter. Some more of the site Mr. Spillers developed which you may recognize are; the sand pits in Leesburg and Tavares, Holiday Mobile Park, El Red Mobile Park, Cypress Cove, the Lake Yale Baptist Retreat, Grand Island, Sylvan Shores, The Springs, various properties around the Gourd Neck Springs area in Winter Garden, he made the swimming pool in Astor Forest Campsites and developed a lot of that land, he was able to pump a lot out of the underlayment sand for Hwy. 441 between Mt. Dora and Leesburg, have you heard of Goat Island, in Lake Griffin? Well, that was his (his goat too), and now belongs to his daughter, Linda. Mr. Spillers turned 92 years old in October 2009 and passed away between 1:00 and 1:30 AM on January 27, 2010. We all miss you and love you dearly! Written and composed by JoAnn Spillers Thornburg 03/10/2006 and revised on 01/27/2010