Many years ago, Harvey Robbins shared a chocolate milkshake with his high school sweetheart, Joyce Ann McKinney, at the Palace Ice Cream Shop in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Many years later, Mr. Robbins, now a successful and prosperous businessman, turned his sights to renovating the ice cream shop where he and Joyce Ann had shared that famous chocolate milkshake “in a metal container with enough to pour into two glasses.” That was only one step in Mr. Robbins’ revitalization of his hometown.
Harvey Frank Robbins was born in Dayton, Ohio on November 22, 1932, the middle son of three boys born to Stanley and Elise Skinner Robbins. His early years were typical small town, where he attended and graduated from Deshler High School in Tuscumbia. He also attended the University of Florida and the University of North Alabama. A gifted athlete, Mr. Robbins excelled in football, basketball, track, and surprisingly, rodeo events – calf roping, bull riding, team roping, saddlebronc, and bareback events. This began a life-long love of “all things Western.” In 1952, Mr. Robbins married his high school sweetheart, Joyce Ann. Their love of the West is evidenced by their lovely Southwestern-inspired home overlooking Lake Wilson in the Shoals. Their love of the West has been passed down to their three children, Harvey Frank II, Angie, and Beverly, and now on to their six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
In 1957, Mr. Robbins’s father founded National Floor Products Company, Inc. (NAFCO) where Mr. Robbins was part owner. Over the next several decades under Mr. Robbin’s leadership, NAFCO grew to a world leader in high-end residential flooring. In 1994, NAFCO was sold to Domco Industries of Montreal.
In 1960, Mr. Robbins founded Applied Plastics, Inc. which continues to operate today as an innovator in custom industrial coatings for manufacturing machinery in a broad range of industries. Following the sale of NAFCO, Mr. Harvey turned his talents to property development and community support, focusing on the beauty and history of his hometown, Tuscumbia. In the late 1990s, he formed Robbins Property Development and embarked on the largest revitalization and development effort in his hometown’s history. His first endeavor was a makeover of the town’s traditional center, Spring Park, by designing and building a 48-foot-high waterfall; a bronze statue memorializing a Chickasaw princess; a replica train running on 4,000 feet of track; and a choreographed fountain, music, and light show modeled after the dancing waters at Opryland. He also stocked the creek with rainbow trout to lure fishermen. Mr. Robbins then turned his sights to renovating the Palace Ice Cream Shop. Today, the Palace Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop has sold well over 25,000 milkshakes.
In 1995, Mr. Robbins opened Doublehead Resort and Lodge, a 1,000-acre development on the shores of Lake Wilson which quickly became a destination resort attracting national attention. Included among other accomplishments were providing the land to enable the construction of the Retirement System of Alabama’s longest Robert Trent Jones Golf Course and a four-star hotel; renovating more than 100,000 square feet of vacant downtown buildings and turning them into vibrant restaurants, offices, and retail shops, as well as the development of new access roads and Tuscumbia’s first hotel. He has been featured on the “NBC Today Show”, in Southern Living, Inc, Business Alabama, and American Way magazines because of his extraordinary accomplishments.
Mr. Robbins served as chairman of the board for Valley Federal Bank and he took the company from a mutual company to a publicly-traded company which was later sold to Union Planters Bank of Memphis. He is a former board member of Central Bank (now Compass Bank) and the Salvation Anny and currently serves on the boards of First Metro Bank, Helen Keller Hospital, and the University of North Alabama.
