Sedgwick County KS Archives Biographies.....Allen, Bennett D. 1842 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ks/ksfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com July 24, 2005, 2:37 am Author: O. H. Bentley Bennett D. Allen, president of the B. D. Allen Realty Company, has been a resident of Wichita, Kan., for thirty-four years, possesses the unique distinction not only of never having sought public office, but of actually having declined it after it was offered him on a silver platter, so to speak. Mr. Allen was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, February 8, 1842. His parents were Noah and Abagil (DeWitt) Allen, and his early education was obtained in northwest Missouri. He served in the Civil War in the Union army, having enlisted in the Missouri state service two years and in the Eleventh Volunteer Cavalry, and after four years' service, partly bushwhacking in Missouri, partly in Arkansas, was mustered out at New Orleans in 1865. He landed in Allen county, Kansas, in 1868, but it was not until 1876 that he made the acquaintance of Wichita, and there was not much of the city then to make acquaintance with. It looked good to him, however, and he at once began to operate in real estate. In 1883 he, with Cal Graham, formed the Allen & Graham Company, dealers in real estate, in a shack where the Manhattan Hotel now stands. Mr. Allen is the oldest real estate dealer in the city in point of service, save only Mr. Healy. For a while he was in the implement business, but the rest of the time loans, insurance and farm lands have been his specialty. With Oscar Smith he formed the concern of Smith & Allen, and eleven years ago the present firm of the B. D. Allen Realty Company. He has seen the city go up, go down and go up again, but whatever the vicissitudes through which it has passed he never lost his faith in its ultimate future. Mr. Allen was married in May, 1867, to Miss Cliffie A. Howard, of Oxford, Ohio. Of this union there have been no children, but they have one adopted daughter, Mrs. C. A. Truex. Additional Comments: Extracted from History of Wichita and Sedgwick County: past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county Editor in chief: O. H. Bentley Chicago: C.F. Cooper & Co. (1910) File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/sedgwick/bios/allen102bs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/ksfiles/ File size: 2.6 Kb