Bill had been operating a store along Hwy. 27 near Mountain Home, which also served as a residence. Myrtle and her family got George to come run the Garven’s Store. In 1948, he and Myrtle took over the store, and they moved their store up near the Garven’s store, so they would have someplace to live. “That’s where I grew up,” Billy said. “Back in the depression, women sold eggs along the side of the road. Many people probably turned their own house into little stores.” Sometimes, Bill would sleep overnight on a cot at the back of the store, Billy said, and wasn’t always up to serving his customers if they showed up late. “He’d ask his customers not to wake him up if they came in,” Billy said. “He didn’t mind if they’d just take what they wanted, write it down and leave their money on the counter. You could do that in those days and trust your neighbors.”

In 1949, local ranchers added another welcome feature to the Divide landscape — the Garven Community Center, built on Garven family land, just across U.S. 83. “All the ranchers would meet here once a month on Friday nights,” Billy said. “I was just a little kid, but I remember we had all kinds of big bands come in and play, including the Texas Top Hands.” Many families had their own tables, Billy added, where they would sit outside and enjoy the evenings. “There were lots of folks from the Divide like the Snodgrasses, Kleins, Lynns, Morrisses and Hatches,” he said. The building and benches are still standing there, and it’s still in the family, but the building has been less frequently used since 1999. “My mother told me that the Border Patrol used to come by in this area catching illegal aliens,” Bill said. “The Border Patrol would come by here and handcuff them to the gas pumps to hold them. Then, they’d go out and catch more, until there was a long line of them. You don’t see them any more, because the illegals have started going a different way, now.”