Allen Cleveland Lewis

He lived in Elgin, Illinois as a young man, where he was a hardware merchant.

Allen traveled to Europe multiple times to study school systems before creating his will expressing his wish to form the Lewis Institute.

[2] The will also stressed that the school taught "courses of a kind and character not generally taught in public schools... studies that would be directly useful to students in obtaining a position or occupation for life.

"[3] Under its first director, George Noble Carman, Lewis Institute initiated a four-year degree track.

This made Lewis Institute the first junior college in the United States.