Oscar K. Allen

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

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

Career 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. During Allen's time as governor, a number of progressive reforms were carried out in areas such as education and working conditions.

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.

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 his predecessor, by the Huey P. Long–O. K. Allen Bridge, which carries U.S. 190 (Airline Highway) 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.