William Ellis Corey (May 4, 1866 – May 11, 1934) was president of the
Carnegie Steel Company from 1901 to 1903, and was president of
U.S. Steel from 1903 to 1911.[1]
Biography
He was born in
Braddock, Pennsylvania in 1866.[2]
In 1883, he married Laura Cook, whom he met when she worked for his family,[3] and they had one son, Allan Corey. In 1906, Laura filed for divorce in
Reno, Nevada, charging that William had deserted her in May 1905.[4] Laura was awarded custody of Allan[5] and a settlement of $3,000,000 (approximately $101,733,000 today).[6] After the divorce, William married an actress,
Mabelle Gilman[7] on May 14, 1907,[8] and in 1914 Laura married Lenn A. Duckworth.[9] In 1911, Corey resigned his position as president of U.S. Steel.[2] In 1923, Mabelle and William were divorced.[10]
The city of
Fairfield, Alabama, was originally named for Corey in 1910 by the
Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, which built the city as a model city for workers at the company's nearby Fairfield Works. The negative publicity from Corey's divorce prompted U.S. Steel, which had taken over TCI, to rename the city for the company president's
hometown in Connecticut.[12]