Oscar 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.

Oscar K. Allen
42nd Governor of Louisiana
In office May 10, 1932 – January 28, 1936
Lieutenant	John B. Fournet (1932–35) Thomas C. Wingate (1935) James A. Noe (1935–36)
Preceded by	Alvin Olin King
Succeeded by	James A. Noe
Louisiana State Senator from Caldwell, Grant, La Salle, and Winn parishes
In office 1928 – 1928[1]
Preceded by	Henry E. Hardtner
Succeeded by	James L. Anderson
Personal details
Born	August 8, 1882 Winn Parish, Louisiana
Died	January 28, 1936 (aged 53) Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Resting place	Winnfield City Cemetery
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	Trinity University (BA)
Profession	Teacher

The O.K. Allen Building at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was renovated in 2011 and now houses the Saucier Wellness Center.

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.

Youth, early life and family

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, a private institution then in Waxahachie, Texas, south of Dallas in Ellis County, Texas (Trinity is now in San Antonio, Texas.)

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 married the former Florence Scott Love of Paris, Texas, the seat of Lamar County, Texas, on December 4, 1912. They had three children: Joyce Love Allen (born 1913, who married Frederick J. Stare), Oscar Kelly Allen, Jr. (born 1915), and Asa Benton Allen (born 1925).

Politics and Governor of Louisiana

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 1916-1920. 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 was 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 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.[2]

Death and honors

Allen died in the governor's mansion of a brain hemorrhage. At the time of his death, he was the Democratic nominee for Long's vacated seat in the United States Senate. 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, the seat of Terrebonne Parish. Ellender held the seat until his death from coronary thrombosis on 27 July 1972.

Allen had been honored by the O.K. Allen Bridge across the Red River between Alexandria and Pineville; however, 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".

His younger brother, Asa Leonard Allen, represented the former Eighth Congressional District, based in central Louisiana, in the United States House of Representatives from 1937-1953.

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.

References

1. Louisiana State Senate records show Allen as a senator only in 1928, but he actually served unconstitutionally until 1930, when the Louisiana Supreme Court struck down his right to hold both legislative and executive offices simultaneously.
2. "Heywood, Walter Scott". A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography. Louisiana Historical Association. Archived from the original on February 25, 2010. Retrieved January 30, 2011.

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