O.K. Allen

Oscar Kelly Allen Sr. (August 8, 1882 – January 28, 1936), also known as O. K. Allen, was the 42nd Governor of Louisiana from 1932 to 1936.

Allen succeeded Alvin Olin King, who served briefly in the state's highest office after Huey Long left the governorship to take a seat in the United States Senate.

Early life and education

Allen was born in 1882 in a log cabin in Winn Parish to Asa Levi Allen and the former Sophronia Perkins. He attended Winn Parish schools, the Springfield Normal School and Business College in Springfield, Missouri, and Trinity University.

Career

Allen taught school in Winn Parish in 1898 and later in Mineral Springs, Texas, and Pleasant Hill in Sabine Parish. In 1908, he was an assistant registrar at Trinity. Thereafter, he worked at times in farming, railroads, the mercantile business, and in oil drilling.

Allen took an early, active interest in politics and civic affairs. After joining the Democratic Party, he was elected tax assessor in Winn Parish and served from 1916 to 1920. He was the clerk of the Winn Parish Police Jury (equivalent of a county commission in other states) from 1924-1927.

He was elected to the Louisiana state Senate in 1928 in the wake of Huey Long's landslide victory in the gubernatorial election. He defeated the anti-Long incumbent, former Republican Henry E. Hardtner of La Salle Parish. Allen served as Long's floor leader in the Senate; he was also appointed by the governor as chairman of the Louisiana Highway Commission, serving from 1928 until 1930. His appointment was legally challenged. In the litigation that reached the Louisiana Supreme Court, it ruled that holding both legislative and executive positions simultaneously was unconstitutional. Allen resigned as chairman.

Allen was elected governor in the shadow of Huey Long, who had resigned after being elected as US Senator from Louisiana and relocated to Washington, D.C.. Allen was considered a political stooge for former governor Long. His brother Earl Long once joked that a leaf blew into Allen's office one day and that he signed it, thinking it was legislation from Long.

Elected with Allen was Huey Long's choice for lieutenant governor, John B. Fournet of Jefferson Davis Parish. Fournet defeated Long's younger brother, Earl Kemp Long, who had the support of most Long family members despite Huey's support for Fournet.

Allen signed into law Louisiana's popular homestead exemption, legislation pushed to passage by State Senator W. Scott Heywood of Jennings. He had been the first to discover oil in his adopted Jeff Davis Parish.

Death and honors

Allen died in the governor's mansion of a brain hemorrhage. One week before his death, he won the Democratic nomination in the special election to fill the vacancy in the U.S. Senate caused by Huey Long's assassination. He had won the Senate nomination with an unprecedented 200,000-vote plurality, but he did not live to assume the office, which went thereafter to speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives Allen J. Ellender of Houma. Ellender held the seat until his death from coronary thrombosis on July 27, 1972.

Allen was the namesake of the O.K. Allen Bridge across the Red River between Alexandria and Pineville. The bridge was imploded on September 26, 2015, due to construction on a new bridge to be named the Curtis-Coleman Memorial Bridge.

The former governor is honored, along with a predecessor, Huey P. Long, by the Huey P. Long - O. K. Allen Bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, as well as the Long-Allen Bridge over the Red River between Shreveport and Bossier City, among others.

Allen Hall on the Louisiana State University Campus, is named in his honor.

O.K. Allen Hall on the University of Louisiana (Lafayette) campus is named in his honor.

Allen is the subject of the Lead Belly blues tune, "Governor OK Allen Blues".

In 1993, Allen was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield, along with the two Long governors, Huey and Earl.

Personal life

Allen married the former Florence Scott Love of Paris, Texas, the seat of Lamar County, Texas, on December 4, 1912. They had three children.

His younger brother, Asa Leonard Allen, represented the Louisiana's 8th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1953.

References

External links

''Winn Parish Enterprise'', from 1/30/36, on Gov. Allen's funeral and obituary

"Oscar Kelly Allen 1932-1936"
State of Louisiana - Biography.

Cemetery Memorial
by La-Cemeteries

"Oscar K. Allen," ''A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography'', Vol. I (1988), p. 10

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Oscar
1882 births
1936 deaths
People from Winn Parish, Louisiana
Baptists from Louisiana
Democratic Party governors of Louisiana
Farmers from Louisiana
Businesspeople from Louisiana
Educators from Louisiana
Trinity University (Texas) alumni
20th-century American politicians
People from Pleasant Hill, Sabine Parish, Louisiana
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century Baptists