Background
William was born on August 9, 1864 in Port Dalhousie, Ontario, Canada, the son of Timothy and Margaret (Sinnett) Sullivan; both parents were of Irish descent.
William was born on August 9, 1864 in Port Dalhousie, Ontario, Canada, the son of Timothy and Margaret (Sinnett) Sullivan; both parents were of Irish descent.
The boy was educated in the public schools of St. Catharines, Ontario.
While yet in his teens he went to Buffalo, New York, and followed there for a time the trade of a carpenter, which he had learned in Canada. Subsequently, he obtained employment in the Garretson furniture plant and soon became manager.
In 1886 he was intrusted with the responsibility of building a sawmill for his employer, L. L. Garretson, who had bought a hardwood tract of 14, 000 acres near Austin, Pennsylvania, and on the completion of this mill he was put in charge of its operation. Meanwhile, he had become acquainted with the Goodyears of Buffalo and for a while conducted some lumber mills for them at Galeton, Pennsylvania.
In 1902 the Goodyears decided to turn their attention to lumbering in the South and began acquiring extensive tracts of land in Washington and St. Tammany parishes in southeastern Louisiana and the adjoining counties of Pike and Marion in southern Mississippi.
In 1906, having organized the Great Southern Lumber Company, they sent some representatives, including Sullivan, to select a site for a lumber mill. Largely at his suggestion, they finally decided upon a tract of land in Washington Parish, Louisiana, along a stream called Bogue Lusa, which empties into the Pearl River. On this tract Sullivan directed the building of the largest sawmill in the world, with a capacity of 1, 000, 000 feet per day, and laid out a town which he named Bogalusa.
He soon became vice-president and general manager of the company and organized other industries, such as a paper mill, a box and crate factory, and a turpentine and creosote plant, which were operated along with the lumber mill. His last project was the manufacture of California redwood lumber, an enterprise which was inaugurated at a cost of $1, 000, 000 and put into successful operation only a few days before his death. With the growth of the varied interests of the company, the town of Bogalusa developed rapidly into a thriving industrial community of about 14, 000 people.
As an executive, Sullivan planned on a large scale and with a view to permanence, mixing sentiment and good business sense. He worked hard to make Bogalusa a beautiful and comfortable place in which to live and to preserve it from extinction through the exhaustion of the timber resources of the vicinity.
During the flood of 1927 he was one of the three principal advisers of Secretary of Commerce Hoover in the relief work of the Mississippi Valley and at Hoover's suggestion became the director of that work in Louisiana.
In 1927 he was made a member of the military staff of Governor Simpson of Louisiana and from that time was popularly known by the title of colonel.
He died in 1929.
He was of striking physical appearance - tall, large of frame, and well proportioned; he had a forceful personality, engaging manners, and inexhaustible energy.
He was married twice: first, on October 4, 1886, at Buffalo, New York, to Elizabeth Calkins, who died on July 11, 1918; and second, on January 27, 1922, at Slidell, Louisiana, to Ella Rose Salmen, who died less than two months before his own death. Three children were born to the first of these unions and two to the second.