Bill grew up working for his father as an assistant for their family store in Irving, Texas. He began learning leather craft from his father at age 8 or 9. The family then moved to Dallas in the mid-1950s, living two blocks away from the State Fair of Texas. As a young adult, he remembers playing guitar at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club. After returning from Vietnam in the early 1970s, Dewbre bought his father's shop with plans to grow the family business.
