Time Period: Early Twentieth Century (1901 - 1940) - Starting with U

The USS Pruitt was a Clemson-class destroyer built in 1919 and named for John Henry Pruitt, an Arkansas native who won two Medals of Honor for gallantry during World War I. John Henry Pruitt was born on October 4, 1896, in rural Newton County near the community of Fallsville. Pruitt joined the U.S. Marine Corps shortly after the United States entered World War I. On October 3, 1918, during the battle for Mont Blanc Ridge, Corporal Pruitt single-handedly attacked and destroyed two German machinegun nests before capturing forty enemy soldiers in an adjoining trench. Wounded by shellfire, he died the next day—his twenty-second birthday. Both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy awarded Pruitt a Medal of Honor for his actions …

J. S. Utley was an influential attorney and Democratic officeholder in the first half of the twentieth century. Joseph Simeon (J. S.) Utley was born on October 18, 1876, on a farm in Greenbrier (Faulkner County) to Francis David Utley and Amanda Melvina Snow Utley. He received his early education in the county’s rural schools, and beginning in 1894, he taught in the county schools. In 1897, he enrolled at Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County), from which he would receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1906. While he pursued his own education, he also served as the principal of the public school in Ashdown (Little River County) from 1902 to 1905. Following his graduation from Hendrix (to which …