Verble, H. E.

H. E. Verble was born in Anna, Union County, Illinois, on September 9, 1881, where he reached his seventeenth year before spending six years as a cowboy in Texas. Moving to California in 1904, he entered the grocery trade in Fresno and joined the National Guard, assisting with patrol and rescue work for thirty days after the San Francisco earthquake. He entered the lumber industry in 1906 with the Pine Ridge Lumber Company and Valley Lumber Company, eventually serving as yard manager in Bowles and later in Kingsburg.

In Kingsburg, Mr. Verble became a prominent civic leader, organizing the city fire department in 1912 as its first chief while serving as clerk of the city board of trustees and high school board. He married Lucy McAfee in Fresno, and together they raised two children, Hal E. Verble, Jr., and Kathryn. Active in the Eastern Star and the Masonic fraternity, he served as Master of Traver Lodge No. 294 in 1916 and was appointed Inspector of the Forty-seventh Masonic District in 1919.