Ward, W. W.

W. W. Ward was born in Sandusky, Ohio, on January 24, 1852, to parents John Ward and Mary Lantz. After living in Toledo, Ohio, and in Iowa, he traveled across the plains with his family in an ox team, arriving in Stockton, California, in 1860. He attended public schools in Iowa and California before beginning work to support his family, eventually buying and improving farmlands near Stockton that he sold at a notable profit.

After briefly operating the National Hotel in Dallas, Texas, in 1883, W. W. Ward returned to California and bought the Welch Hotel in Kingsburg, managing it for five years starting in 1884. He subsequently bought and sold numerous local farms and ran extensive cattle operations, accumulating an 800-acre estate across Kings and Tulare counties and becoming rated as the richest man in Kingsburg. He was married first to Julia Gann, with whom he had four children—Charles H., Josie, Ivy, and Lois—and married his second wife, Rachel Kerrick, in 1884.