“VERNOR E. WARE. Though comparatively new in the business in El Paso, becoming established as late as 1910, the firm of V.E. Ware, contractors and builders, have carried on a highly successful enterprise and are well known to the building interests of the city. Many of the finer buildings erected here in the past two years were handled by this enterprising form, and a bright future is everywhere predicted for the principals. Vernor E. Ware entered the firm with little or no actual experience in the building and contracting business, but he has demonstrated a splendid capacity for the work, and as manager of the business interests of the firm is quite efficient as if he had been brought up in the business. Prior to his present business enterprise he was engaged in the fuel business in El Paso, and previous to that time had for a number of years been prominent in railroad circles, attaining positions of no little prominence in the executive offices of various roads. His accomplishments, considered by and large, are certainly worthy of a man of more mature years, but are wholly merited on his part by reason to the ardor and enthusiasm he has brought to bear in his work, wherever it was found to lie.
Vernor E. Ware, was born in Pendleton county, Kentucky, on October 10, 1883, and is the son of Solomon G and Ida (Petty) Ware, both native born Kentuckians, and of English ancestry, their less remote ancestors having been Virginians. The father is now a resident of Covington, Kentucky, where he is engaged in the oil business and is one of the successful men of the city. He is at present filling the office of city auditor. The mother also makes her home in Covington. They became the parents of six sons and one daughter, and of the number Vernor E. Ware is the third born.
The schools of Covington furnished the early training of Vernor E. Ware, and he finished with the curriculum of the high school of that city when he when he was sixteen years old, soon after which he entered upon the duties of a clerkship with the Queen & Crescent Railway. He began his duties on a salary of $50 a month, and from that position worked his way by successive promotions to assistant chief rate clerk, when he resigned his position and came to El Paso in the Fall of 1902. For four years thereafter he was associated with the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad as assistant chief clerk in the general freight office, and then withdrew from the railroad service to engage in the fuel business on his own responsibility. He carried on a thriving business under the name of Ware & Company for four years, then disposed of his interests in that line and entered into a partnership will William G. Jolly, under the firm name of Jolly & Ware, general contractors and builders. They have carried on a busy trade in their line of enterprise, taking a leading place from the first among the older established contracting firms of the city, and their reputation for dependable work is not the least of their assets.
Mr. Ware is a Democrat in his political tendencies, and has done good work for the party in the years since he reached his majority. His fraternal relations are with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Masons, in which he is a member of the Shrine at El Paso. He hass membership in the Country club, and is affiliated with the Baptist church.
On August 4, 1900, Mr. Ware was married to Miss Mary Spanton, the daughter of T.W. Spanton, a resident of Spring Lake, Kentucky, of which place Mrs. Ware is a native. They were married in Covington, Kentucky, the old home of Mr. Ware. Two sons have been born to them–Vernor E. Jr., born on September 2, 1906, at El Paso, and Alfred Spanton, born on August 17, 1909. The family home is 1509 Cotton Avenue.”
Source: A History of Texas and Texans, Vol. 4, by Francis White Johnson and Ernest William Winkler, The American Historical Society, Chicago and New York, 1914, page 1638
