Ruffin Golson Pleasant was born and grew up near Shiloh in western Union Parish, Louisiana, the eldest son of Benjamin Franklin Pleasant and Martha Washington Dudy. Pleasant studied at Ruston College, Mount Lebanon College, Louisiana State University, and Harvard University. He attended Yale Law School, graduating in 1897. He taught at LSU from 1896 to 1898, and was admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1899. Pleasant joined the United States Army during the Spanish–American War in 1898. Pleasant held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the First Louisiana Infantry Regiment.

Ruffin G. Pleasant entered politics in the early 1900s, reaching the office of State Attorney General by 1912. He was elected as Louisiana's Governor and served one term, 1916 – 1920. After his term ended, he returned to Shreveport and resumed his law practice. He served in the Louisiana Constitutional Convention in 1921, and in 1923, he and his wife Anne Ector Pleasant founded the Pleasant Hall School near their home on Highland Avenue in Shreveport. For more information, see Governor Pleasant's biography.

This photograph was submitted to the Union Parish Louisiana USGenWeb Archives by Linda Davis in May 2006.

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