John Ware
 Few figures
stand out in the rich ranching history
of early Alberta like John Ware. Born into slavery in the American
South, Ware spent much of his youth picking cotton on a plantation in South
Carolina. When he left the plantation as a young man, he spent several years
working the round-up in Texas before heading north to Alberta, rising to fame thanks to his exceptional equestrian talents. John Ware was a true
pioneer, establishing his reputation in a frontier society with deeds rather
than words. His skills in the saddle, straightforward honesty, and hard work
earned him the respect of fellow cattlemen at a time when acceptance of racial
minorities in Alberta was not widespread.
 John arrived
in Alberta on a cattle drive from Idaho in 1882. In 1892 he married a local girl
by the name of Mildred Lewis. By 1900 the couple had five children and,
although he had worked for both the Bar U and Quorn Ranches, Ware moved
his family from the Calgary area to a spot along the Red Deer River in 1902. There he
purchased several hundred acres and built a cabin of spruce logs right on the
riverbank.
Life on the frontier prairies was not
to be without hardship. Shortly after the cabin was built, the river flooded
and his home was swept away. Salvaging what logs
he could, John re-constructed the cabin on higher ground overlooking a stream,
now called Ware Creek. But the family did not occupy the new site for long.
In the spring of 1905, Mildred died of pneumonia. In September of the same year John
himself was killed when his horse tripped and crushed its fallen rider. It was
testimony to Ware’s stature in the community that his funeral, held in
Calgary, was the largest in that young city’s history. Afterwards, the
children left to live with their grandparents and the property was sold in an
estate sale.
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