Prime Stakes, Inc. was incorporated in Feb. 2004, and began operations in March 2004. The owners Warren Bohn and Chris Bohn purchased an existing business that was operating in Lake City. During the purchase of E.A. Stakes, we learned the history of the founder of the original company called Jonas Survey Stakes.
Jonas Survey Stakes was founded by Buis Jonas, a true Florida pioneer and operated
in Branford, FL. Mr. Jonas was born in Levy County (Gulf Hammock) on January 18, 1909. In Feb. of 1930 he married Bessie and began his family and had eight children. Mr. Jonas was a jack-of-all-trades and worked hard at family farming, and struggled year after year in tobacco farming and dealing in turpentine cups.
In 1951, someone suggested that he “cut” some tobacco sticks.
Farmers would buy these wood sticks to cure out their tobacco crops.
That is how it all got started. His business cutting sticks for the tobacco farmers, got another farmer interested in the “sticks”. Soon the poultry farmers needed “chicken sticks” to build their cages for the chicken farms. To this day, Prime Stakes still gets orders from customers that Mr. Jonas had back then. The tobacco stick & chicken stick industry served his family and paid the bills until one day in 1958 a man can to visit. That man was with a company called Florida Power and told Mr.
Jonas that he was a surveyor. He said his company needed “stakes”. So Mr. Jonas and his wife Bessie cut 100 stakes for that surveyor from Florida Power. And that sale, that day started the survey stake business.
As his customer base grew, Buis Jonas made saws & machines that could handle the work, and revised and re-worked the machines. In 1969 he built a new shop and had 10 employees that cut survey stakes.
Jonas Survey landed large projects that built Florida. Jonas Survey stakes were bought and used for the construction of Cape Canaveral, and the Florida Turnpike. His biggest customers were civil engineering firms like Morehead
Engineering from 1970 to 1978, the State of Florida Road Works.
Soon to follow were customers that were the large developers like Deltona Corporation and International Paper. One of his largest jobs on the company’s books was with the Road Department of the State of Arkansas.
Jonas Survey Stakes served the growth industry in Florida. The customer base he developed is the customer base that Prime Stakes serves today.
Elva Jonas Ordway compiled his biography “Biography of Buis M. Jonas” in 1978, and it is a live interview recorded at Hildreth, in Suwannee County Florida and Mastered at Emmit Brooks Recording
Studio.
In March 2005, the Jonas Family was invited to Prime Stakes’ Grand Opening celebration of our new 14,000 sq.ft. facility in Trenton, FL.
We were proud that his daughter Glenda Jonas Sanford, granddaughter, M. Charlene Sanford and other family members were our honored guests. They gave Prime Stakes, Inc. a copy of this CD and a written copy of his biography. The Jonas family was amazed that two of our six production lines are equipment that Buis Jonas designed and built.
We at Prime Stakes are proud of this company’s history and legacy.
The Jonas family says that Mr. Buis Jonas would be very proud of what we have done with his business.
Tags: Buis Jonas, chicken sticks, Jonas Survey Stakes, prime stakes, survey stakes, tobacco sticks
