- adventure clothing
- archery
- backpacking
- camping
- climbing
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- gun shop
- inline skating
- kayaking
- Metal Detecting
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- Scuba Diving
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The sport that we now know as scuba diving began as a military operation, and Bill Jackson was instrumental in turning that operation into a sport. He and Joe Barker, a good friend and lieutenant with the U.S. Navy, took their classes to Spa Pool in downtown Saint Petersburg for training. The focus was safety first, then fun. Bill Jackson, Inc. is now one of the oldest dive shops in the country and the only dive shop in the world to house three NAUI Instructor Trainers.
In 1961, the Jacksons again found that they needed more room. Outdoor sporting goods completely replaced army surplus by this time, and they coined the slogan: “The Usual and the Unusual for the Great Outdoors.” The Jacksons purchased a bigger building across 4th Street and made seven major expansions to it. Then in 1968, they purchased five acres on Highway US 19, and decided to plan their “dream store.”
The building process began. The “dream store” included an indoor pool for SCUBA and kayak instruction, designed by Darry Jackson. They added a classroom, an indoor ski deck, and a shooting range. Most importantly, though, by instruction of Mrs. Jackson, the pines and palmettos were to be saved! With green stone from Wyoming, red cedar from California, and cypress from Florida, the 38,000 sq. ft. building reached its completion in 1976.
Through the years, the Jacksons credit much of their success to word-of-mouth networking and to their expert staff. They hire only those who have a passion for the outdoors and a great deal of knowledge about their sport. That even includes snow–skiing. Their revolving ski deck has attracted flabbergasted visitors from around the globe. On any given day in the ski shop, you can hear someone say, “Snow skiing in Florida? Are you kidding? This is some store!” And it is. It’s one of a kind.
Mr. and Mrs. Jackson continue to play an integral role at the store, and their presence serves as a reminder to all of us that life is challenging, surprising, and fun. But mostly, it is an adventure!
Our History
The accident that became Bill Jackson, Inc.
Bill Jackson began his business in the back of a garage with a ton of bleach and five hundred pounds of rat poison. If that sounds bizarre and a little unbelievable, it is! They say it all began by accident.
During WWII, Mr. Jackson, a native of Atlanta and a builder at heart, was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. He spent a total of five years in the army and maintains that his greatest lesson was how to peel potatoes. One night, at a Big Band party on base, he met the lovely Harriet Rogers and cut in for a dance. Mrs. Jackson would later say that, at that moment, she knew she would marry him...even though he was, in her words, “the worst dancer.”
Mr. Jackson spent over two years in England with the Eighth Air Force, then returned to Florida, and more importantly, to Harriet Rogers. Shortly after their marriage in 1946, Mr. Jackson attended an army surplus auction on base. He came home to his newlywed wife with five hundred pounds of rat poison and a ton of bleach. Quite suddenly and perhaps by accident, the builder became a business man.
That little garage accumulated army blankets, parachutes, foot lockers, radio parts and more. The Jacksons soon realized that they would need an actual store in which to keep their goods. So in 1951, they purchased an old ramshackle building on 4th Street and 11th Avenue South, and began preparations to make their move.
Those plans hit a brick wall when the city condemned the building, but even this did not stop the Jacksons. They drew up plans, had them approved, and rebuilt the store in an unthinkable thirty days. Bill Jackson and Bud Stark, who worked at the store for 39 years, did much of the labor themselves.
A family of two grew into a family of four, and Darry and Doug Jackson have worked at the store since they could man the registers. They stood on upside-down trash cans when they were children in order to reach the counter-tops. Darry even remembers his mother putting him and his brother on display in the window with the sleeping bags to amuse the customers. Now, over fifty years later, with business degrees under their belts, Darry and Doug Jackson manage customer relations, store travels, finances, advertising and business in general.
By 1952, Bill Jackson’s had grown to include fishing tackle, camping gear and even scuba diving equipment. Then Mr. Jackson made a revolutionary decision for the future of his business; he began to teach scuba diving. There were no books available, no programs such as NAUI or PADI, and much of the gear was jerry–rigged. But Mr. Jackson firmly believed that it was important to teach what he sold.