A Gainesville business owner and philanthropist died Monday night after a nearly 30-year battle with Parkinson’s disease. Jim Smithson moved to Gainesville from Atlanta in 1958 and started a mobile home manufacturing and retail business called Vintage Enterprises. Abit Massey, Smithson’s longtime friend, said he was a pioneer in the mobile home manufacturing business.
Smithson remembered as behind-the-scenes leader
Son says his father was a self-made man
