page_title: Allen, Oklahoma
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Allen, Oklahoma / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Black Rock school in 1896, Allen, Oklahoma
context_page_description: Allen is a town in Hughes and Pontotoc counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 932 at the 2010 census.
context_section_description: The town was founded in 1883 by a group of white settlers who had arrived in Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory in 1882 from Gainesville, Texas, led by Confederate Army veteran Doctor John Trigg Gilmore, his wife, Elizabeth Louise Oliveaux, their children, and relatives William and George McCall, with their respective families. They first settled in Cold Springs, northwest of the present town site, where other settlers soon joined them. The first log cabin was built in Allen in 1883, and this building was used as both a school and church. The town was named after the son of deputy United States marshal William McCall.
  Allen, Oklahoma is the modern-day site of the Battle of Middle Boggy during the American Civil War.
  In 1892, Dr. Gilmore became Allen's first postmaster and founded the town's first Masonic Lodge two years later.
  The Missouri, Oklahoma, and Gulf Railway built a line through the area in 1909, although it bypassed Allen, by a half-mile.
  Allen became a boomtown in 1913, when an oil well was drilled west of the town. The population rose from 645 in 1910 to 1,389 in 1930, but dropped to 907 in 1970. Its principal industries besides petroleum are ranching and agriculture.
  The Allen Advocate is a weekly newspaper published on Thursday in Allen. The newspaper is published by the Robinson Publishing Company, founded in 1982, by Bill and Dayna Robinson. The company also publishes the Coalgate Record Register and the Holdenville Tribune.
caption: Old photograph of Black Rock School, in Allen, 1896
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