A graduate of Union College in 1845, Allis moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1846 and started a leather company with a tannery in Two Rivers.

Most of the early business involved making flour mill apparatus, Wisconsin at that time being a leading wheat-producing state.

Eventually, the Edward P. Allis Company expanded into steam engines, sawmill equipment, iron piping, and other products.

Allis, who up until that time was a Republican, catapulted to prominence in November 1875 when he wrote a letter to the Milwaukee Sentinel in which he expressed the view that government financial policy was ruining the prosperity brought about in the wake of the war.

West Allis, Wisconsin, is named after the fact that Allis-Chalmers built a new large manufacturing facility at that location shortly after the founding of the merged company.