R.P.M. Davis
1874–1964
Roy Paul Miller Davis was the principal promoter associated with the Juniata Valley Colony Club’s creation. On August 26, 1924, he helped convene the organizing meeting at Mount Union High School. A contemporary report counted 128 stockholders and charter members and described a plan that joined a country club to a summer-cottage development along the Juniata River.
The undertaking was larger than golf. Davis promoted cottage lots, rental homes, roads, water and sewer service, a clubhouse, swimming, tennis, boating, fishing, and trapshooting. His August 1926 prospectus described roughly 600 acres and explained how land sales, visitors, rentals, and club dues were expected to support the development. Those figures preserve the promoter’s ambitions; they do not prove that every proposed cottage or lot was completed.
Outside the club, Davis was a Princeton graduate, banker, manufacturer, and prolific inventor. His best-known products included the Sta-Neet razor-and-comb combination.
R.P.M. Davis’s patented Sta-Neet razor-and-comb combination, one of his 200+ patents. His invention made news as far away as the Honolulu Advertiser in 1948.
A Complicated Financial Record
Davis’s role also places him at the center of the project’s financial story. In a December 1929 public letter, he carefully distinguished the Juniata Valley Realty Corporation, which developed and owned land, from the Colony Club, which operated the recreational institution. He discussed borrowing, credit pressure, and bankruptcy threats while defending both organizations. His letter is important evidence of his position, but it was not an independent financial audit.
The project continued to plan expansion in 1930 even as stockholders authorized a proposed increase in indebtedness. This tension is essential to understanding the Colony Club: Davis helped create an unusually ambitious regional recreation community, but the business behind it was under strain years before the 1936 flood.
For the complete source-based account, see The Colony Club Story.