William Cobb Lane was born in Goldsboro (Wayne County), North Carolina, on November 25, 1874. Lane lived in North Wilkesboro (Wilkes County) for about eighteen months while he worked as a pharmacist at North Wilkesboro Drug Company. He and his family moved to Lee County in 1915, where Lane worked as a teacher and later principal at Sanford High School. He died in Sanford on April 24, 1947.