William Joseph Horgan was born in Leadville, Colorado, December 19, 1897. At an early age he moved with the family to Nevada and became a resident of Reno. He graduated from the Orvis Ring School there, after which he attended All Hallows College in Salt Lake City, Utah. Following his school work he was employed 18 months by the Western Pacific Railroad Company in Nevada. Just previous to enlisting, he worked in the San Francisco shipyards. While thus engaged with the Schaw-Batcher Company, the General Superintendent of the Corporation, Mr. A. L. Becker, wrote to the young man’s mother: “Your boy is filling a very important position at present in our organization, and we are about to put upon him additional duties that will make him a much more important member of our force. * * * We therefore are respectfully requesting that you use your influences to permit him to stay with us, and the writer will assure you that your son will have his personal attention. * * * By staying here he is doing equal if not greater service to his Country than if he joined the Army at the present time.”

In spite of this the Call proved so strong that he enlisted in the Army on the 17th of June, 1918, and was assigned to the Coast Artillery Corps. Just before embarking for France, he wrote to his mother: “The proudest moment in a man’s life is to feel he is needed, and can go and give the best he has for his home and country.”
While on board the S.S. Lutetia, he was stricken with influenza, and died at sea on the 14th of October, 1918. Reverend John A. Connolly, Chaplain of the 49th Regiment, C. A. C., wrote to the boy’s mother telling her of her son’s last message—that he had received the last sacraments and died happily. The Chaplain added: “Willie is a hero before God and men, with the same devotion and love for mother.”

The remains were shipped to his home in Reno, Nevada, and buried there on December 20th, 1918.His mother, Mrs. Kate Horgan, of 942 Sierra Street, Reno; his brother, Lionel, and his sister, Miss Madeline Horgan, survive him. He was one of those true patriots in whose breast burned the fervor of devotion to Country, who felt that every able American should enter the ranks to fight for the home and nation which sheltered him, and who disdained any situation or position which was only an excuse for shirking the supreme duty. He answered the call like a man, and gave, as he had wished, “the best he had for his home and Country.”