Thomas E. Zellars, a Grantville native born in 1898, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1920 and reported for duty aboard the USS Mississippi. As a turret commander, he rose to the rank of lieutenant. In 1924, an explosion and fire engulfed his turret. Zellars and 47 others were killed, but not before he opened a flood valve on the burning powder train, an act that saved the ship and its crew. In 1944, the naval destroyer USS Zellars DD777 was launched in his honor. It later served in both World War II and the Korean War, receiving five battle stars, and was decommissioned in 1971.