Over the years many people, upon seeing our products for the first time, have said, "That's great!" and then asked, "How long have you been making that track?" Here's a brief history of GarGraves.

To the surprise of many, GarGraves has been around since 1940. It started as an idea of Eldyn S. Graves who joined with Earle A. Gardner to manufacture and market this new flexible track. Our name comes from a combination of their names. Don Roder, who originally worked for the company, purchased it in 1963, and now he and his family operate it.

GarGraves was originally available only in O Gauge three rail with tinplated rail. Then two rail and outside third rail were added to the line. In the early fifties the "Phantom" black center rail was introduced. S Gauge track and Standard Gauge track were also added to the line.

Switches were developed in the fifties as well and track was made available with Stainless Steel rails for those who needed a rust resistant track.

GarGraves survived the sixties when model railroading, especially in the larger gauges, was in the doldrums. Things began to improve through the seventies and many special gauges were made to order along with multi-gauge track. We made Standard with O Gauge; O Gauge with S Gauge; #1 Gauge in both two and three rail; #1 and O Gauge; #1 and S Gauge and many other odd gauges.

In the eighties we added uncouplers and uncoupler/unloaders to the line.

Now we are in the new millennium and 60 years plus from our birth. We introduced our line of sectional track in August of 1995 in both O, S & #1 Gauges. And two years later we began to make a switch to match our O-42 curves. A switch to match our O-72 curves is in production for O, S, STD and #1 Gauge.

We are not sitting still. There are some other innovative and desirable products coming in the future!