Remembering Wendell O. Pruitt and William L. Igoe

Pruitt & Igoe will forever be known around the world as the names on the biggest failure in modernist public housing, Pruitt-Igoe. When the Pruitt-Igoe complex was designed it was to be racially segregated. The black portion was named after Wendell O. Pruitt and the white portion after William L. Igoe. Who were these men?

Pruitt

Wendell Oliver Pruitt (June 20, 1920–April 15, 1945) was a pioneering African-American military pilot and Tuskegee Airman originally from St. Louis, Missouri. He was killed during a training exercise in 1945. After his death, his name, along with William L. Igoe’s was given to the notorious Pruitt–Igoe public housing complex in St. Louis.

Pruitt grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, as the youngest of ten children to Elijah and Melanie Pruitt and attended Sumner High School. He then furthered his education at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, becoming a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Pruitt, already a licensed pilot, enlisted in the Army Air Corps Cadet Flying Program in Tuskegee, Alabama, eventually graduating and being commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on December 11, 1942.

After graduating from flight school at Tuskegee, Pruitt was assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group, then stationed in Michigan. The 332nd was transferred to the Mediterranean theater in late 1943 where Pruitt flew the P-47 Thunderbolt.

In June 1944, Pruitt and his occasional wingman, 1st Lt. Gwynne Walker Peirson, landed direct hits on an enemy destroyer that sank at Trieste harbor in northern Italy. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for this action. Thereafter, the 332nd flew the P-51 Mustang as their primary fighter aircraft.

Pruitt teamed with Lee Archer to form the famed “Gruesome Twosome”, the most successful pair of Tuskegee pilots in terms of air victories. The “Gruesome Twosome” are featured in a History Channel show entitled Dogfights: Tuskegee Airmen. Pruitt flew seventy combat missions, was credited with 3 enemy kills, and reached the rank of captain. (Wikipedia)

Wow, a very impressive young man! Read more here and here. Pruitt is buried at St. Peters Cemetary in Normandy (source). His parents died in the 1960s and are also buried there.

Pruitt couldn’t have been any more different from Igoe.

Igoe

William Leo Igoe (October 19, 1879 – April 20, 1953) was a United States Representative from Missouri. He attended the public and parochial schools of St. Louis and graduated from the law school of Washington University in St. Louis in 1902. He was admitted to the bar in the same year and commenced the practice of law in St. Louis. He was member of the municipal assembly of St. Louis from 1909 until March 3, 1913, when he resigned to enter the United States Congress.

Igoe was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-third and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1913-March 3, 1921). He declined to become a candidate for renomination in 1920. He resumed the practice of law and was an unsuccessful Democratic nominee for mayor of St. Louis in 1925. He was chairman of the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners 1933-1937. He died in St. Louis on April 20, 1953 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery. (Wikipedia)

Igoe lived a long life — 73 — and had an impressive career. Clearly he was a man of privilege, maybe his accomplishments were just average  given his background?

Two men who likely never crossed paths are forever linked.

– Steve Patterson