Born in Grand Junction, Tennessee,"Alan Prewitt, Chief Justice, Dies at 70", The Knoxville News-Sentinel (February 18, 1963), p. 1. Prewitt graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School, where he was captain of the Vanderbilt Commodores basketball team. He served in combat overseas during World War I, and later practiced law in Bolivar, Tennessee, where he "took all kinds of cases to keep eating".
