Hard work is nothing new to Dickie Davis. He has been doing it all of his life. in addition, he has worked for the county he proudly calls home, serving and contributing his time and resources for as long as he can remember. Those who know him best describe him as ambitious, industrious, enterprising, frugal, and always, without fail, a dedicated and fervent worker in all he undertakes to do.
When this county native was growing up in Macclenny, it was a time when things were beginning to emerge from behind a dark cloud of recession. His hardworking, God-fearing father, Richard John Davis, overcame the obstacles of destitution during the time of the Great Depression in the nation, and started, in 1931, what is today The R.H. Davis Oil Company.
I was making $28 a week in Jacksonville working all day long, and I'd make $150 a night hauling moonshine to the man in Gainesville. I carried him 30 jugs three times a week and would get up the next morning and go to work for 75 cents an hour. I never missed a day's work the whole time I did that, and I did it until I was drafted into the army and left for Korea.
When I was discharged on April 21, 1953, I borrowed the money from my sister Kathryn to buy me a 1952 Cadillac and hauled enough moonshine to pay her paid back in three weeks.
At night he rumbled down Baker County's backroads and Florida's by-ways in his souped-up Cadillac and other fast cars, hauling moonshine. Besides hauling whiskey, he seized the opportunity to haul and sell sugar to the local moonshiners. It was a chance to get ahead of the low-paying, low-scale jobs in the '50's... that is, if you could even find one. It had long been a way of life in Baker County as a means of supplementing family incomes and at that time few people thought anything about it.
I didn't get involved or have anything to do with it," said Faye, "but once I had to go over and get him out of jail," she said. "Dickie was arrested while speeding and running from the law," she explained. "They had blocked the road at the Ellerby curve so they got Dickie and took him to jail in Lake Butler. He was charged $500 and given 30 days in jail. I was expecting our first baby any day, so I went over there. I had the money, but they would not let him out.
While most of the moonshiners in Baker County took their hauls through Baxter and were always being chased by the law, I went SR 90 through Lake City and seldom had the same problems.
Bootleggers had morals, and they were trustworthy people back then". "They wouldn't let you curse around ladies; they'd get you if you did and call you down.
Fast cars, out-running the law, initiating fast car races, 'out foxing' the authorities was life in the fast lane, and Dickie Davis had a part in all of it. His stories are endless and even as candid and frank as he normally is, he steadfastly refuses to relate some of them. In the first place, you wouldn't believe them, and in the next place, I wouldn't want them printed.
In 1959 something happened that changed the Davis's life. "I came home one day and told Faye I was quitting. I said, 'I'm selling all my cars and equipment,' and the reason I did was because I saw that the people were getting down on it. People were telling on their neighbors and things were beginning to change. Things are beginning to change and I'm going to change with it I don't want my kids to grow up in nothing like this.' So I quit...just like that!" Contrary to what many people conceive as moonshine days of money rolling in by the barrels, Davis said it was not true.
Today, the R.H. Davis oil Company, boasts of six trucks and eight modern Exxon stations. It is still a father-and-son operation although his father died in 1969. Today, Dickie's son, Ricky, is affiliated with the company which is located on 121 north of Macclenny. LP gas was added to the business in June 1983, and more than 50 employees staff the office, service and delivery departments.
Before his death, Richard Davis was an active member of the Primitive Baptist Church where he served as a deacon. Among the many things he did for the community was helping to build the present day Macclenny Primitive Baptist Church. He served for six years as a Baker County School Board member.
Please leave the ink pad and stamp in the cache they are not swag.