CHARLES E. WARNER has been a resident of Arkansas since his childhood days and is now a representative member of the bar of the state, as is he also a citizen of distinctive progressiveness and public spirit. He has been established in the practice of his profession in the city of Fort Smith for a quarter of a century and in addition to controlling a large and important private practice he is also incumbent of the office of general solicitor for the Fort Smith & Western Railroad Company.

Mr. Warner was born in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, on the 15th of May, 1854, and is a son of William M. and Julia A. (Blocker) Warner, both natives of the south and representatives of staunch old southern families. The father, during the major portion of his active career, was a merchant and farmer, and both he and his wife passed the closing years of their lives at Des Arc, Arkansas, where they established their home prior to the Civil war.

Charles E. Warner was a lad of eight years at the time of the family removal to Arkansas and he was reared to adult age at Des Arc, Prairie county, this state, where he secured his early educational training and where he also studied law under effective preceptorship. In 1876 he was there admitted to practice in the lower courts, and his ambition and close study were such as to entail not only cumulative success in his chosen vocation but also a constantly expanding knowledge of the minutiae of the science of jurisprudence, with the result that he eventually was admitted to practice in all of the courts of the state, including the federal courts and the Arkansas supreme court, and finally he proved himself similarly eligible for practice before the supreme court of the United States, before which he has presented a number of important causes, with briefs of an order that show his broad and exact knowledge of the law as well as the versatility of his dialectic powers. Mr. Warner continued in practice at Des Arc until 1886, when, with a view to securing a wider field for professional work, he removed to Fort Smith, where he has built up a large and representative practice and gained professional prestige that is not circumscribed by local limitations. Soon after the completion of the Fort Smith & Western Railroad from Fort Smith to Guthrie, Oklahoma, in 1901, Mr. Warner became connected with its legal department, and his effective services soon led to his selection for the office of general solicitor, of which position he has been incumbent since 1903. In the private work of his profession he now has an effective coadjutor in the person of his son, Harry P., who read law under his direction and who later continued his studies in the law department of the historic old University of Virginia, at Charlottesville; he was admitted to the bar, at Fort Smith, in 1908, and has since been associated with his father in practice, under the firm name of Charles E. & Harry Warner. Mr. Warner, on December 24, 1879, at Des Arc, Arkansas, was united in marriage with Miss Harriet H. Walsh, a native of Des Arc and a daughter of Dr. William Walsh. Four children have been born to this union: Charles E., Harry P., Cecil R. and Eugene.