"[3] With fellow college teammate, John P. Barden, Allen played professionally with the Erie Keystones during the summer of 1876.

While in Erie, he learned the concept of a curve ball from a competitive Pittsburgh pitcher, perfecting it in the college ranks.

Allen and his college-educated wife (of Smith College), Corinne, both strongly supported public education.

Allen is credited with authoring a bill passed by the territorial legislature in 1890 that provided free public schools for students age six to eighteen.

With the admission of Utah as a State into the Union, Allen was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth Congress and served from January 4, 1896, to March 3, 1897.