Wade Hampton Kornegay was born in North Carolina and graduated as valedictorian at Wake Forest College (now Wake Forest University) in 1884. He was a school teacher before beginning his law degree at the University of Virginia in 1889 and graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1890. He came to Vinita, Oklahoma, and established his law practice there in 1891, where he practiced until his death in 1939, with the exception of two years as a member of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. In 1906, he was elected to the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention and helped write the document which resulted in Oklahoma becoming a state.